By The Intern

In the offseason heading into the 2018 MLB season, the Cubs signed Darvish to a 6 year, $126M deal. Unfortunately, Darvish vastly underperformed in the eight games he appeared in. His season was then cut short due to injury.

In an effort to start new in Chicago, Darvish decided to learn how to speak English.

In his prior six MLB season, it was always necessary for a translator to help relay messages for Darvish in his native language of Japanese. Darvish felt it would help make him more approachable to his teammates if they could understand each other in one-on-one situations.

Despite the new connections Darvish has made with his teammates, a decline in his pitching performance accompanied this positive change.

“People can be so mean online. I can’t lie, it threw me off my game,” said Darvish. “I’ve been on Twitter for a few years now, but I could never connect with the fans in America because I didn’t understand English. Now that I do, I feel like a waste of space every time I scroll through my mentions.”

Ignorance was bliss for Darvish on social media when he only spoke Japanese. Darvish pointed to his lack of confidence as the reason for another slow start in 2019.

“It’s not easy logging on Twitter to find countless trolls telling me I’m a worthless human being,” said Darvish. “I know what you’re all thinking, ‘Yu, just stay off Twitter’. But there’s so much entertainment on there. I LOVE that WeRateDogs account. I just want to boop them all. They’re all a 14/10 in my book. Plus, that Darren Rovell guy is a riot! So funny and clever, he made a Rob Gronkowski-69 joke the other day and I nearly lost it. How else am I supposed to see this stuff if I stay off Twitter?”

Cubs manager Joe Maddon spoke on the situation following Saturday’s 6-0 loss to the Diamondbacks. A game where Darvish received his second loss in only four starts this season.

“Yu really needs to stay off Twitter. No positives come from him being on there, I don’t care how much he loves those doggos,” said Maddon. “If Yu asks me why @MILFhunter6969 called him a shit-shipper on Twitter one more time, I may lose it.”

Darvish was also seen post-game nudging first baseman Anthony Rizzo before showing Rizzo his phone.

Sources say Darvish was showing Rizzo the latest Tweet from the Kent State gun girl. Rizzo proceeded to slap Darvish’s phone out of his hand before walking away in a fit of rage