Yu Darvish Gives the Blue Jays a Glimpse of What Could Have Been

Because of Alex Anthopoulos' tight-lipped policy on all things baseball, we may forever remain in the dark on how much, if anything, the Toronto Blue Jays bid for the services of Yu Darvish this past offseason.

But despite the clandestine tendencies of the Blue Jays' engineer, most fans, analysts, MLB people—basically everyone under the sun—surmised that Anthopoulos placed a bid, and believed that bid to be significant.

After all the bids had been posted, but before the winner was announced, it was speculated that Darvish was poised to land in Toronto. But as rumors often tend to be, this one was false.

Darvish ended up in the Lone Star State and has been impressively plying his trade this spring. 

Tonight was something of a bittersweet moment for many Blue Jays fans who watched Darvish pitch at the Rogers Centre for the first time in his career.

It was a sweet moment because the Japanese hurler has become an instant icon in North America, and the novelty of witnessing Darvish's first game north of the border was something to behold.

On the other hand, he was pitching for the wrong team. Bitter indeed.

Though the Jays' starting rotation has exceeded expectations thus far into the 2012 campaign, Darvish would most certainly be a welcome addition.

The Texas Ranger has pitched like an ace thus far during his young career, and all the decent starts Brandan Morrow, Henderson Alvarez, Drew Hutchison and Kyle Drabek give just don't compare.

While each player on that list has been serviceable so far, none has shown the ability to dominate as consistently as Darvish has. Sure, Morrow and Alvarez may pitch as well as Darvish from time to time, but Darvish's numbers speak for themselves—4-0, 2.18 ERA. 

No one on Toronto can match those numbers, not even staff ace Ricky Romero. All this, not to mention that Darvish has allowed just three runs over his last 27.1 innings pitched.

Admittedly, it's too soon to say for sure that Darvish will be a success, but early indications are that the Jays missed out on a gem.

It's unlikely that he'll keep the frenetic pace he has set in the early going, but every time he takes the mound it seems more and more likely that he will achieve bonafide ace status sooner rather than later. 

Oh, what could have been.