Coming over
from Chiba Lotte Marines, Nishioka was lauded for his eye at the plate, racking
up numerous walks and an impressive on-base percentage to go along with it. Yet,
we had not been privy to this discerning eye rather one that does not seem quite
calibrated. After all, in 26 plate appearance he has struck out eight times -
going down looking whopping six. Most fans knee-jerkingly want to deem Nishioka
overmatched by Major League Baseball’s superior firepower without considering
that Japan’s strike zone, while vertically larger, is typically narrower than the
one we have over here.
Although he
had the ability to hash out the details of the stateside strike zone without
the threat of bodily injury, he was not afforded the same luxury when discovering
the realities of the American basepaths.
This past
winter, when asked if he had any advice for his incoming countryman based on
his experience assimilating to the American game, Kaz Matsui offered some words
of wisdom for Nishioka including:
“Be careful about getting spiked during double plays”
With just a
handful of middle infielders making the conversion from Nippon Professional Baseball
to the major leagues, it has been a slow process for those players to embrace
the type of play necessary to compete with the vigorous effort shared by their major
league counterparts around second base.
At TheBaseballCodes.com, a website
dedicated to many spoken and unspoken rules of the game, the authors discussed
the differences of the style between the two countries on the basepaths. Former
major leaguer and ex-Yakult Swallow second baseman, Rex
Hudler, said of
his tenure in Japan’s Central League in 1993 that:
“They didn’t come after me on double plays. They didn’t like to break up double plays. They weren’t real physical in their game. I was a physical guy, I liked contact. I had to ask the Americans on the other teams to come get me. I said, ‘come on, let’s make it fun, let’s make it exciting.’ ”
To be sure, this non-aggressive behavior has been practiced for
generations in Japan. It had been an element missing from their game for so
long that, back in 1987,
the
Tokyo Giants sent a handful of their prized prospects to workout with the then-low
A Miami Marlins in order to indoctrinate them in the ways of “hard-nosed”
baseball. More specifically, they were sent to learn how to go into second base
with their “spikes” up. Seeing has the “hard-nosed” movement just began to take
roots in the early 1990s in Japan, it is easy to see why, as middle infielders
began to transition from the Far East to the United States, most were not
adequately prepared for the intensity that is shown on this side of the globe.
In another
instance cited at TheBaseballCodes.com, according
to Rod Allen*, the color commentator for the Tigers at Fox Sports Detroit,
referenced another second baseman that came over to the White Sox in 2005:
“(Japanese infielder) Tad Iguchi’s first couple of months here he just about got killed because he didn’t know that the American players came in that hard at second base.”
*Allen, who also played in Japan
himself, is remembered for one of the more bizarre incidents when charging
the mound, another practice not observed overseas.
While Iguchi
never suffered a serious injury like Nishioka’s, he was sent sprawling several
times including one that resulted in a deep knee bruise courtesy of Oakland’s
Scott Hatteberg in 2005. However, another celebrated Japanese infielder,
Akinori Iwamura, a third baseman for most of his career with the Yakult
Swallows, was badly injured in a brush up at second.
Unlike Iguchi
or Matsui, Iwamura’s initial introduction allowed him to maintain his original
position of third base in 2007 but was soon pressed off of the hot corner when
prospect Evan Longoria was deemed ready. The Rays moved Iwamura around the
diamond to second where, with the exception of a dust-up with the Yankees’
Shelley Duncan in spring training, he handled himself quite well. In 2009
however, Iwamura
would suffer a very similar injury to Nishioka in the very same manner.
While playing
a series against the cross-Everglades Marlins, in the bottom of the eighth inning
Florida’s Wes Helms bounced a check-swing double-play ball to Rays pitcher Dan
Wheeler. Wheeler fielded the ball and spun to second to feed the covering
Iwamura. Iwamura received the throw on the base but then planted his front foot
out in front of the bag to make the relay throw to first. Instead of completing
the throw, the Marlins’ Chris Coghlan came in hard to the exposed Iwamura and wiped
the infield dirt with him.
The play resulted
in a torn knee ligament for Iwamura and he was sidelined for the majority of
the 2009 season. The following year, Iwamura never really regained his
pre-injury abilities and wound up hitting just .173/.285/.250 in 229 plate appearances
split between Pittsburgh and Oakland. Because of his unfamiliarity for needing
to bail out quickly when turning the double play, Iwamura likely accelerated his
way out of major league baseball.
In addition
to not only lacking the awareness to have a quick release, there is another
element contributing to Nishioka’s unfortunate injury at second.
As a
shortstop, Nishioka was in the process of transition back to a position he had
not played since 2005. This was a similar plight shared by his predecessor Kaz
Matsui. When the Mets decided that Matsui’s defense at short was not up to
snuff for the major league level, they switch him over to second base. Of
course, while some might think that simply moving 50 paces to your left is an
easy task, Matsui
had some issues:
“Matsui said … that his biggest challenge remained becoming proficient on double plays, in large part because he cannot see the runner coming toward him the way he could while playing shortstop.”
That description sounds awfully familiar to what transpired in the
Bronx on Thursday afternoon.
In revisiting the clip, the footage clearly shows that Nishioka’s focus is on the baseball and not the whereabouts of the incoming Swisher:
So for
Nishioka, in just his sixth game at second base in seven years, he had to
relearn the situational awareness that comes with the territory. Whereas when
he was playing shortstop, the play happened before his eyes. Similar to a
quarterback being rushed by a blind-side blitz, here we see a prime example of someone
who is not entirely cognizant of the unfolding events.
With these
cases in mind, it can easily be concluded that because Japanese players do not
grow up in a baseball culture that is taught to be vigilant of some two-hundred
and ten pound individual bearing down on you, they seem to have a harder time
adapting to the position – particularly the middle infield. This is exacerbated
when accounting for the fact that they receive little on-the-job training at
the minor league level.
As much as it
was likely stressed in Florida to Nishioka regarding the league’s ability to go
gung-ho into the keystone, there really is no way of conveying this message
(even more so when considering the language barrier) until a player is actually
experiencing it. And for a player like Nishioka, he had to learn the lesson the
hard way.
