How Many Quatloos Will Cashman Bid On The Newcomer Yoshida?
Hey, don’t forget that our Yankeeland Provider once bid $26 million just for the rights to make Kei Igawa a millionaire twenty times over.
Who is Yoshida? See this from ESPN.com -
Eri Yoshida hopes to expand that roster and break the gender barrier at the same time.
Yoshida, the petite 18-year-old who became the first female drafted by a Japanese professional team, Kobe 9 Cruise of the Kansai Independent Baseball League, made her pro debut on March 26, 2009, at the Osaka Dome. She learned how to throw a knuckleball as a young girl by watching video of Wakefield.
On Tuesday, at the Red Sox player development complex, Yoshida, wearing a gray Boston T-shirt with Wakefield’s name and number on the back, met her idol and pitched with him.
“I’m impressed,” Wakefield said. “She spun a couple, but for the most part it was very good. She was able to take the spin out of a lot of them and they had quite a lot of movement on them.”
Yoshida, who stands 5-foot-1 and throws her knuckleball with a sidearm motion, is in the United States to pitch in the independent Arizona Winter League. She got her first win on Feb. 12, tossing four shutout innings for the Yuma Scorpions. But she admitted she was nervous working with the 43-year-old Wakefield.
“I think everything that he taught me is going to give me a chance to really work on what I need to work on,” she said through Red Sox team translator Masa Hoshino. “But also, I got a chance to meet him and it really gave me some courage and the confidence I need to really get back to training hard.”
Sure, she’s not very tall – and Cash has said he likes tall pitchers. But, Pat Venditte isn’t a giant either.
Get a new script writer.
Cute story, we’ll see how her experience compares to Ila Borders
I realize this might sound crazy…but…I just watched the game from earlier today, and Igawa looked pretty good. I realize it’s spring training, but I’m talking about the pitches he was making even more then the results. They all had good movement, a lot of quality strikes. Most of the balls he threw were near misses or waste pitches.
Oh the irony