[新聞] 魔球"初登場" 松坂大輔迷惑馬林魚打者
Gyroball makes ‘debut’: Matsuzaka dazzles Marlins hitters
By Michael Silverman
Boston Herald Sports Reporter
http://redsox.bostonherald.com/redSox/view.bg?articleid=186844&format=&page=2
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
JUPITER, Fla. - The gyroball exists and Daisuke Matsuzaka throws it, at least
that’s what a couple of major league hitters were left thinking yesterday.
In Matsuzaka’s Red Sox [team stats] debut against major leaguers, two
Marlins - Jason Stokes and Jeremy Hermida - said they saw a pitch that had
movement and action unlike any other pitch they had ever seen before.
Hermida saw it three times, Stokes once and the UFO broke down and away
to the left-handed hitting Hermida and in on the hands of Stokes.
The ball spun in a clock-wise direction, or reverse to what they are used
to. It had a screwball-like rotation that left them shaking their heads.
Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell said Matsuzaka’s changeup was the
pitch they actually saw but that was not what the Marlins called it.
“It’s a pitch that’s somewhere between a changeup and a splitter but it
’s got a sideways spin,” said Stokes. “It’s like a split, but it’s
slower, more movement.”
Stokes had one at-bat against Matsuzaka, a seven-pitch plate appearance
with the next to last pitch being the supposed gyroball.
“He threw four different pitches to me - a fastball, slider, gyro and
curve,” said Stokes. On the gyro, “He threw it up and in. I could see it
was obviously a ball right away. I’m thinking ‘Get out of the way.’ It
kind of backs up on you.”
Hermida encountered the pitch three times. He affirmed Stokes’ version
that it was a gyroball, saying it was somewhere between a changeup and
split-fingered fastball.
“It looks like a split, but it’s slower,” said Hermida. “It didn’t
have the same spin as a split. It had its own unique character.”
Hermida saw Matsuzaka turn his wrist over in a screwball-like manner,
which gives the ball its reverse spin.
“It’s got a good, hard and downward break but comes out with more speed
than a changeup,” he said. “It comes out of the hand good and then it just
dies on you.”
Hermida hesitated to use the word “gyroball” but he clearly had no idea
what it was.
“I think that it is what it is, but it might not (be a gyro),” he said.
Stokes took his “gyro” for a ball. Hermida popped up both times and
took the other for a strike.
The believe-it-or-not “gyro” was part of Matzusaka’s three scoreless
frames in a 14-6, 10-inning win. Dice-K gave up two hits, struck out three
and walked one.cw0
Farrell said Matsuzaka “turns over” his changeup, which accounts for
its spin and unconventional movement as well. He did not hesitate to single
out the pitch that Hermida and Stokes saw as Matsuzaka’s changeup.
“That’s how (his changeup) moves,” said Farrell.
The gyroball was invented by a pair of Japanese scientists trying to
devise a new and unhittable pitch on their computer. They concluded the pitch
behaves the exact opposite - breaking away from righty hitters and into
lefties - from what Farrell describes as Dice-K’s changeup.cw0
The scientists published a book about it, and at last year’s World Baseball
Classic, in which Matsuzaka was named MVP, he became associated with it. He
has since been coy, never completely denying it since being signed by the Red
Sox [team stats].
Matsuzaka, of course, has nothing to lose and everything to gain by
getting inside the heads of major league hitters, letting them think he’s
got a gyroball up his sleeve.
As far as he and the Red Sox are concerned, an imaginary gyroball is just
as good as a real one.
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