German_Force » Zach Miller Jersey

Chicago Cubs right-hander Yu Darvish felt soreness in his troubled triceps tendon after a minor league rehabilitation start Monday night.

Darvish hasn’t pitched in the majors since May 20 because of right triceps tendinitis. The Japanese ace threw five sharp innings for Class A South Bend.

”In the triceps there’s likeliness to get more fatigue there Ronnie Harrison Color Rush Jersey , especially if there’s a long gap between innings,” Darvish said through a translator while wearing ice packs on his right shoulder and right elbow. ”That’s when I feel fatigue there. Not necessarily pain, but I can’t for sure say there is nothing going on in the tricep zone.”

Darvish, who pitched a simulated game last week in Chicago, was set to rejoin the Cubs in Los Angeles on Tuesday. He said his performance was ”not perfect.”

”I will be flying into LA and we’ll be discussing more about the future schedule,” Darvish said. ”It’s not up to me to decide. The coaches and manager will have to watch the (rehab) game and decide. It’s not anything bad. Anyone comes off DL goes through this.”

”It’s day by day,” he said. ”It differs. I had some anxiety coming into this game as I did in the sim game. The goal today was to pitch through four innings and not have to cut it short early because of pain.”

Darvish allowed one run and three hits – a solo homer by Joey Morgan and two doubles – against West Michigan in the Midwest League game. He struck out five, walked none and threw 57 pitches, 41 for strikes.

”He could be back by the end of the week,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said at Dodger Stadium before Darvish had completed his outing. ”He is pitching right now. He is doing really well. He is throwing a lot of strikes. His fastball has been good and his breaking ball has been good so he is getting really close.”

The 6-foot-5 Darvish, who signed a $126 million, six-year contract as a free agent in the offseason, has struggled to a 1-3 record with a 4.95 ERA in eight games. He’s twice been on the disabled list, the first time for flu.

Darvish threw an assortment of pitches, with his fastball reaching 94 mph. He ended the fourth with a 62 mph slow curve to strike out a completely fooled Reynaldo Rivera and received high-fives from his teammates when he reached the dugout.

Chris Davis doesn’t blame the fans at Camden Yards for showering him with boos, especially when he’s walking back to the dugout after another strikeout.

The Orioles slugger is enduring a nightmare season. Although his power numbers have improved slightly since a recently mandated layoff, Davis is batting .156 with seven homers Logan Cooke Color Rush Jersey , 24 RBIs and 99 strikeouts at the midpoint of the season.

Not exactly what the Orioles were expecting when they signed the left-handed hitting first baseman to a guaranteed seven-year, $161 million contract in January 2016.

At the time of the deal, Davis averaged 42 home runs and 109 RBIs over the previous three seasons and was coming off a year in which he hit .262 with 47 homers and 117 RBIs.

Since then, his production has dipped annually. His 2017 numbers – .215, 26 and 61 – were downright prolific compared to this year.

Thus, the jeers from the home fans, who have grown weary of watching the struggles of the highest-paid player on the worst team in the big leagues.

”I understand their frustration,” Davis said. ”I know exactly what I’m capable of and what I’ve done in the past. I know that the standard is high and I haven’t been playing that well. But I have to move forward and continue to try to find a way to still have an impact on this season.”

It’s probably too late for his bat to make a difference. His most significant influence on the team, unfortunately, is that his sizable contract makes it that much more difficult for Baltimore to pay big bucks to several of its pending free agents, most notably Manny Machado.

The Orioles and Davis appear destined to be together through the 2022 season, so both sides must make the best of it. That’s why Davis was given an eight-game hiatus in June to get his swing down and his head right. Up to that point, he had tried just about everything else.

”For me, it was exhausting,” Davis said. ”My solution to a lot of my problems in baseball has always been to work. I felt as long as I was working, as long as I was trying, that I would figure it out. This is the first time in my career when I was kind of at a point where I didn’t know what else to do.”

So he went to the sideline Armani Watts Color Rush Jersey , working with hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh and vice president of baseball operations Brady Anderson, a left-handed batter who hit 50 homers for the Orioles in 1996.

Upon his return, on June 26 in Atlanta, Davis homered and drove in two runs. Over the past 10 games, he’s hitting .158 with two doubles, two homers, nine RBIs and 13 strikeouts.

”His run production is a lot better, his at-bats have been better,” manager Buck Showalter insisted. ”They may say comparatively speaking, but if Chris continues at this rate, if you put it over 160 games it’s pretty good.”

Davis has tried just about everything else in an effort to get back into the groove, with the breakaway from the game coming as a last resort.

”I appreciate them giving me the chance to step back, gather myself and regroup,” he said.

Showalter and the organization can only hope for positive, lasting results.

”Chris has been a good friend of mine,” the manager said. ”He’s got a lot of support from the coaches and his teammates.”

—