In what was his second straight subpar (by his standards) outing Yu Darvish (5-1) picked up the loss after surrendering a sacrifice fly off the bat of Hiram Bocachica with two outs in the bottom of the ninth Wednesday night at Seibu Dome. The 4-3 loss was Darvish’s first of the year.

It was also the second straight game Darvish gave up two HRs as both Takeya Nakamura and Toru Hosokawa went deep for Seibu.

The four earned runs raised Darvish’s ERA to 1.46, dropping him behind Rakuten’s Hisashi Iwakuma (1.39 ERA) in the Pacific League. In 67 1/3 innings Darvish has 60 strikeouts, which puts him on pace for a career mark in K/9.

Darvish was also chosen one of the Pacfic League’s players of the month for March/April, the other being designated hitter Takeshi Yamasaki of Rakuten. In the Central League the honors went to Takahiro Arai of Hanshin and Yakult Swallows lefty Masanori Ishikawa.