Ron Darling doesn’t have a Luis Severino regret — but he should

TBS’ Ron Darling started Warmupgate tremendously, but finished it poorly.

Before Yankees Game 3 starter Luis Severino’s first pitch, Darling and TBS did exactly what you want on a broadcast: They told us and showed us something we could not see. Severino oddly warmed up later than normal for a starter.

Darling questioned Severino, but noted Severino did not appear rushed. It was a good nugget with proper context.

By the fourth, with Severino walking off the mound, done for the night, Darling said, “Severino started warming up late, he exits the game early.”

It is a good line, but an unfair one. Darling was drawing a cause-and-effect, which was a huge indictment of Severino because it meant he was unprepared for a playoff game.

Darling doesn’t want any backsies.

“I don’t take it back,” Darling told The Post. “I think that would be weak for me to take that back.”

For reporters or analysts, there is always an urge to push a story a little further, but you should always only say or write what you know. If you don’t, mistakes happen. Darling made that error in Game 3. Did we really know that Severino warmed up late?

Darling has jumped to the top of his profession by being a pro. A lot of broadcasters are chatting in the press dining room or making lunch reservations instead of studying the field, like Darling was during Monday’s pregame. He noticed Severino was unusually late and thought maybe he had something wrong or Severino had to go to the bathroom. Darling wasn’t drawing a conclusion.

Darling, off-air, asked his producer, Scott Cockerill, “It is a 7:40 time, right?” He wanted to make sure he had the time right.

Cockerill and the crew found video of pitching coach Larry Rothschild telling Severino the time of the first pitch. They checked the time stamps to make sure they had everything in order. It was fine work.

But you have to be fair and, in this case, Darling went too far, especially when you consider Severino’s postgame incredulousness on the topic. Severino said there was nothing abnormal.

When Severino failed, Darling did as well, drawing a straight line from his pregame prep to his poor outing, declaring as fact that Severino warmed up late and left early.

“That was a cute line,” Darling said in our interview. “You are going into break. You are trying to find something interesting to say. That’s a going-to-break line. But I understand what you are saying.”

Overall, the TBS broadcast for the first three games of Yankees-Red Sox has lacked a big-game feel that is usually felt on Fox’s playoff games. Play-by-player Brian Anderson is solid, but very dry, while Darling’s best skill is observation, not delivery, which is straightforward. There isn’t much pizzazz, and the two only worked five regular-season games together.

On SNY, with the excellent Gary Cohen and the unpredictable Keith Hernandez, Darling’s insight plays a little bigger and better, granted under the smaller microscope of mostly meaningless Mets games on a regional network.

Darling has not had his best series. In Game 1, he made a big deal about Luke Voit possibly interfering on a double-play chance at second, which was really a non-issue. In Game 2, he said that Aroldis Chapman would get “some work” in the ninth inning of a four-run game when, in reality, Aaron Boone was just trying to tie the series. In Game 3, Darling counterintuitively said in the first that Brett Gardner may have been asking for glasses because of the mist in Game 3 in the Bronx on Monday.

To his credit, when asked in the interview about each one, Darling admitted some or full fault on each criticism. Darling also apologized for saying “chink in the armor” when speaking about Masahiro Tanaka earlier in the series, even though it was obviously not in any way intended.

In Warmupgate, Darling wasn’t taking back anything.

“I tried to find the oddity of it, as opposed to an indictment of it,” Darling said.

At first he was successful, but, in the end, he was not.