Changing things up backfires on Darvish

ARLINGTON — Rangers manager Jeff Banister acknowledged that his two best pitchers — Cole Hamels and Yu Darvish — had two rough outings against the Athletics this weekend. He wasn’t really interested in developing a theory as to why.

“We have got to be better,” Banister said after Saturday’s 11-2 loss to the Athletics. “We believe in those two guys, Cole and Darvish. A little challenge for those guys the last couple nights, but we believe they’re as good as there is out there.”

Maybe Darvish shouldn’t tinker with his mechanics so much. Darvish was good in his previous outing, allowing one run in 6 2/3 innings in a 2-1 victory over the Angels last Friday. But he inexplicably decided to change things up between starts, and that seemed to throw him off.

Darvish allowed a season-high seven runs on seven hits and four walks; he struck out eight.

“I mentioned that I had a good bullpen session in between,” Darvish said. “That was something different from what I’ve been trying this season. So it was already a little bit of different mechanics than I’ve been trying. I was a little concerned about that, because it was totally different from what …

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