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. -- 在奇怪的時刻突然想寫blog http://chordate.blogspot.com/ --

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