Former Cubs ace Yu Darvish gets a chance to vanquish the Dodgers Friday in NLDS

After 12 years in the league and with more than 1,700 combined regular season and postseason innings under his belt, Yu Darvish is still looking for that first World Series ring. On Friday night, he'll get the ball with a chance to push his team, the San Diego Padres, one step closer to that goal in a high-stakes showdown against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

With the NLDS tied at two games apiece, it all comes down to Game 5, which features a 38-year-old Darvish squaring off against Yoshinobu Yamamoto, making it a sort of showdown between generations given Yamamoto is just 26 and in his first MLB season.

It's safe to say most Chicago Cubs fans will be pulling for Darvish and the Padres. There's no love lost between most of the National League and Los Angeles - and that rings especially true in San Diego. This has been a heated series with emotions repeatedly hitting a boiling point. Padres manager Mike Shildt trusts Darvish and his experience to deliver in one of the biggest starts of his career.

Darvish made just one postseason start during his time with the Cubs - against the Miami Marlins in the Wild Card Series. He turned in 6 2/3 innings of two-run ball, but the Chicago offense mustered nothing to back him. The Cubs scored one run in the two-game series, bowing out immediately in our first taste of the expanded postseason format.

We didn't know it then, but that start wound up being his final one in a Cubs uniform. Jed Hoyer traded him to San Diego less than two months later in exchange for a package of prospects headlined by Owen Caissie, who now ranks as the organization's #2-ranked prospect and the #34 prospect in the game, according to MLB Pipeline.

Despite a rocky start to his Cubs career, Darvish quickly endeared himself to the fanbase, reminding us all of the human aspect of the game. He hit his stride in that 2020 season, finishing second in NL Rookie of the Year voting, working to a 2.01 ERA in a dozen starts, leading the league in wins (8) and FIP (2.23).

Now, in his late-30s, Darvish has the chance to reach the League Championship Series for the third time in his career: he did it in 2022 with San Diego and, I forgive you if you forgot this, as a member of the Dodgers team that ended the Cubs' hopes of defending their title back in 2017.