[新聞] Wang speaks softly, stymies Sox' sti …
※ [本文轉錄自 NY-Yankees 看板]
作者: xiemark (aisinjuro) 看板: NY-Yankees
標題: [新聞] Wang speaks softly, stymies Sox' sticks--Boston Herald
時間: Fri Aug 31 12:12:23 2007
Wang speaks softly, stymies Sox’ sticks
By Rob Bradford
Friday, August 31, 2007
NEW YORK - The soft-spoken kid from Taiwan might have provided the
Yankees’ loudest message all week.
Chien-Ming Wang, who has struggled to master most of the Red Sox
[team stats]’ hitters throughout much of his three-year big league
career, showed yesterday he might be coming down the back end of the
learning curve just in time to induce pennant race nightmares throughout
New England.
In his fourth start of the season against the Red Sox, Wang pitched
masterfully, allowing just one Mike Lowell [stats] hit as New York won,
5-0, in the series finale at Yankee Stadium. And that single to right
field only came after he cruised through the first six innings without
surrendering a hit.
“It was,” said Yankees manager Joe Torre, “just an important game
to get a guy to pitch like that.”
In Wang’s first seven career starts against the Sox, including an
April outing this season, he compiled a 2-4 mark with a 5.05 ERA.
Up and down the Red Sox lineup, the matchups seemed one-sided.
Against Wang, David Ortiz [stats] and Eric Hinske both were hitting
.500, with the Sox designated hitter going 12-for-24 and Hinske batting
10-for-20. Kevin Youkilis [stats] was at .389, Alex Cora [stats] was
hitting .313, and Dustin Pedroia [stats] had notched three hits in as
many at-bats against the 27-year-old sinkerballer.
“The thing that is probably most important is that he knows what he
has to do,” said Torre, whose team became the first to have starters
take no-hitters into the sixth inning on consecutive days against the
same team in the last 57 years, according to Elias Sports Bureau. “He
hasn’t really concerned himself as much with who he’s facing. That’s
what makes him successful.”
Since that April 29 loss, Wang has won all three of his starts
against the Red Sox, allowing just five runs in 19 innings (2.37 ERA).
“(These) last two times I threw a lot more change of speed, more
sliders, more changeups,” said Wang, the third Taiwan native to make
the majors. “(Yankees catcher Jorge) Posada called good pitches.”
As good of a game plan as the Yankees might have presented Wang, his
execution was even better. Playing off a fastball that reached as high
as 97 mph, the righty fanned two of his biggest nemeses, Ortiz and
Hinske, four times in seven at-bats.
And making the news even less palatable for the Red Sox going
forward is that it isn’t just them that Wang has seemed to figure out.
He was coming off an eight-inning gem against Detroit in which he
allowed just one earned run.
The key, according to Yankees pitching coach Ron Guidry, is that
Wang is speeding up his approach to home plate, while throwing his
trademark sinker a bit harder for control’s sake.
“When you start committing early to those pitches at 93-plus when
he’s throwing his changeup like he did today, it’s hard to hit (the
offspeed stuff),” explained Guidry. “That’s all he’s doing. His
pitches are a lot better and a lot crisper.”
The Red Sox better hope they’re not too much better or crisper.
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