Yu Darvish

Playing in Japan suits me the best, but what I need is in the Majors. I felt that in order to do my job, I needed to change my job location.

I talk to Kyle Hendricks a lot.

I don't need much motivation.

I'm never satisfied until I win all the games and have an ERA of 0.00.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I can bring a 10 to any important game.

When I look at my numbers, I don't give up a lot of hits.

My average against hitters is pretty good.

Personally, do I feel like an All-Star? I don't think so.

Like I'm seeing Chris Sale; he's got a similar pitching style and strikes guys out a lot. Why are people only talking about my strikeouts and all that stuff?... Why not the other guys, who have similar numbers and pitch counts?

Since coming to the major leagues, my passion toward baseball had started to decrease.

I almost feel like I grew up and was raised in America now, because I'm so comfortable here.

If I were to return to Japan, Nippon Ham would be my top choice. No doubt about that.

I am a baseball player and I enjoy getting batters out and that is what I want to continue doing.

I'm not good at math.

I want to become the type of pitcher any one in the world can say is the world's best pitcher.

I don't want to be in the clubhouse, if I have the coronavirus or something like that, coming into the clubhouse and spread to everybody, that's not good, right?

Every morning when I woke up, I would pray, 'I have to throw today, please let there be no pain.' Those were very gloomy days. Meanwhile, the atmosphere around me had become, 'Is he faking an injury?' 'Is it a mental problem?' Those words made it extremely difficult for me to stop and rest, and it really took a toll on me emotionally.

I want to remind people with dogs that they are your responsibility.

Kids used to say stuff all the time about how I was different.

I'm a big guy, right? But I began to realize that by actually using my body like a big guy, I couldn't control my pitches the way I wanted to.

I could throw the ball hard, but at this level if you're not accurate, it's easy for batters to light you up with home runs. That's when I started concentrating on making my movements more compact. It just seemed to me that smaller movements would produce the kind of pitching I desired.

I can throw strikes any time.

It's really hard to be consistent, and you have to know your body and know yourself.

My kids and wife love Chicago, especially the kids.

I'm trying to throw more curves because I'm always throwing fastball, slider, fastball, slider.