Padres All-Star ace Yu Darvish becomes fastest to 1,600 K’s

San Diego Padres All-Star ace Yu Darvish made some history on Sunday Night Baseball in a 2-1 victory over the Atlanta Braves.

The Japanese native bounced back from a rough outing in his last start against the San Francisco Giants allowing just four hits and one run over 6 2/3 innings during the Sunday win.

Yu Darvish reaches a new milestone

With just 1,302.1 innings pitched, the 35-year-old’s fourth strikeout of the day became the 1,600th of his MLB career, making him the only pitcher who has reached that breakthrough in fewer than 1,350 innings.

Darvish spent the first few years of his MLB career with the Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs before joining the Padres in 2020. He made his fifth All-Star team a year later while registering an 8-11 record with a 4.22 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 199 strikeouts over 166 1/3 innings pitched covering 30 starts.

With 11 games this season, Darvish and the Padres currently have the longest faultless streak to begin a season in the MLB, surpassing the 2018 Red Sox.