I Pitched Against The Giants

I Pitched Against The Giants

This week’s going to be tough. I’m facing the Giants and one of the best hitters in Japan, Okamoto. Now, you’ll probably see him in MLB in a couple years, but he’s super hot right now. And I’m hoping this isn’t a repeat of 2023, which as a reminder, I had a great first start, then I faced the Giants in start two, and they hung a seven spot on me. So, repeating that would be terrible, especially cuz we’ve kind of been struggling as a team recently, so I’m feeling a little extra pressure to pitch well and stop the slide. Anyway, let’s head to the field and start preparing for the Giants. All right. Now, last time I did these, I had a little bit of a back spasm. So, I got to make sure that I keep my core engaged and hopefully we don’t have another back spasm. What I like to do to do that is I like to breathe out all the way so I get a nice core position. Then I try to breathe in without losing that core position. You should feel like internal pressure and then maintain that to lock your core in. [Applause] Bye. Ryu, what time’s lunch end? 1:30. 1:30. Okay. [Applause] I feel pathetically unathletic right now. I feel like I’m moving so slow. It’s probably why I’m throwing like 150 instead of 155. Got to move faster. After my workout, I got some treatment in the training room. Did some contrast therapy and the day finished with a team win to move us back to 500. So, all in all, a good day. Woke up with an 86 sleep score. And of course, it was raining, which means we’re working out indoors. [Music] Oh, tight. Oh, even tighter. [Music] More sweep, more lift. Throw harder. Okay. Okay. Game for today has been cancelled. Means we’re 1 and0 on this series with two cancelled games. Those games will get rescheduled for after the season. Hopefully I get to pitch one of those and I get my start made up. I’m going to play light catch today and then tomorrow’s an off day, but I got to come in and throw a bullpen. Get ready for the Giants in the Tokyo Dome. First time pitching there. I’ve only pitched against the Giants once here in Japan. They put up six or seven on me. So, time for some payback. I got to get ready for that. Now, I’m looking at my start and looking at my numbers. My fast ball and my sweeper stuff plus was down. So, investigating the fast ball we got. Throwing it too slow and vertical break was not good. So, we got to make sure that we’re focused on pointer finger getting through the ball and back spinning it this cycle. Also, sweeper was uh not sweeping very much. So, I need to focus on pointer finger being the last thing to touch the ball, pressing the side of it forward. So, a lot of pointer finger focus today in catch play, even though it’s kind of raining. The glove is good, but the tariffs make it too expensive now. Rain, rain, go away. Don’t ever come back another day. Pointer finger. So, what I’m doing is I’m taking my middle finger off the ball. Now, it ends up being back on the ball when I throw, but I’m taking my middle finger off it to start so I focus on the pointer. Dre, my vertical, my fast ball is 44 cm. Yeah, I put a 55 in there with 54. Yeah, but the average was 44, which is terrible. So, even on my athletic throws when I’m throwing sidearm, I’m trying to think pointer finger just so I emphasize that feel. Oh. Oh, yep. It got there. We’re good. I kind of like that. That was hard. Oh, no. Yeah, that was very hard. Got to figure that one out. Found a hole in my throwing game. There we go. Got to remember not to throw too hard today because I’m just trying to recover. But I feel pretty good. Feel pretty good here. I have no idea what the ball’s doing movement wise, but it feels good off the pointer finger. There we go. Sweeper’s back. Yeah, we just got to think pointer finger. What do you got though? So, you’re feeling like your torso is going open early. I think I was just speeding up up here. Yeah. And then like my head was leaking a bit. That’s the main thing I see mechanically. Everything looks good, but you have a tendency to like I do the same thing in my slide step. I have a tendency to go forward first instead of like a little bit down to center. Yeah. If you go forward first and the torso does this just a little bit, then you run away from the arm and then everything gets here or there and just like yanked. But if you can go like a little bit more relaxed or like a little slower in the start, just down a little bit just to hit the back leg, it centers the torso and then everything can like go on time. Even like in your leg lift like sometimes I see like the front shoulder go down like a little early and from there it’s like it’s really hard to get direction with your hand like through the plate. And it doesn’t have to be like super deep running cuz you’re not a guy that gets like a ton of depth in the back leg, but just whatever that whatever that depth that you like to get is like hit that first before you go forward. It won’t make much difference on like your leg time, but it’ll just like position your body a little bit better to be able to work athletically. I think like when you’re given like that 110% like like through the baseball like it doesn’t happen for you right at the beginning. No, I feel like that sometimes I get in trouble where it’s like I’m trying to like create that 100%. Yeah. Right from the leg. You know what I mean? I was that way for the majority of my career. I would try to get it too early and I would go here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and this would open. These would go together and the arm would fly and it’d be sailed up arm side or it’d be just yanked. And now what I think about is a little bit more aggressively down if I want like a little quicker. So if my normal is like here, I might think like drop a little bit more aggressively, but it’s still emphasizing the down. And then I think about how quickly can I go from here there instead of how much can I rotate early cuz until your front foot’s on the ground, you can’t create power anyway. If I want to create a little bit more velocity, I need a little bit quicker to the plate. But that just comes by going down a little bit quicker, not by moving quicker forward this way. But you don’t think about pushing with this leg pushing into rotation. Tense just happens, right? Yeah. If you just hit the down, it’s gonna it’s gonna go. And once the front foot’s firmly on the ground, as hard as you can conceptually, it’s it’s easy. Executing it is difficult. Dude, it took me 5 years to like solidify this stuff. I started in 2013. I was like, “Oh, this is what my delivery needs to be.” By 2018, I was like pretty consistent with it. I talk about it like it’s easy cuz conceptually, I try to simplify things, but it’s hard. Just want to throw 100. But we’re all We’re all racing for that. You guys got a little advantage. You’re both stronger than I am, more athletic and younger. So, don’t let me beat you. The game Sunday was rained out, so I finished up at the field and headed home. But I love talking baseball with teammates like that cuz I actually get to learn stuff when I talk to them by explaining it and hopefully they get to learn stuff from me as well. And if you want to learn Mondays. Monday’s Mondays. Monday’s an off day for everyone except for me this week because I’m pitching Wednesday and so Monday is my bullpin day. Don’t have a uniform today for some reason. So, I’m throwing in shorts, which is a little bit odd. Usually throw bullpens in full uniform, but uh I throw bullpens in shorts in the offseason all the time, so not a big deal there. I’m going to get some dynamic warm-up done. Play catch with Dre and then uh throw throw some bullpen things, pitches, whatever you call them. I’m going to work on fastball spin efficiency and sweeper lateral movement because those were the two things that were down in my last start, impacting my stuff. Plus, see if we can get those numbers back to where they need to be. That’s the plan. Hips are moving better. Dare I say hips might almost feel normal. Oh, it’s wet. Quite wet. Bree’s going to have to take a bath today. Soaked. All right. on this. I’m focusing on pointer finger through the ball cuz you have a tendency to like grab the ball with your whole hand and then pointer finger comes off cuz you’re supernated. No, gross. Did I just invent a new pitch? What is that? That’s like a sid spin, front spin change up thing. I’m trying to work on my pointer finger getting through the ball. So, I’m just taking my middle finger off it and then it’s just like weird spin. Body feels pretty good today. I would hope after only throwing three fake innings, but still better than not feeling good. Hips are rotating really well. That’s nice. Oh, no. Come back here, bro. [Music] Oh, get there. Nope. Oh, wow. Where’s that pitch going? Oh, wow. What was that? An actual good change up. Last one. First five or six are going to be pointer finger. Just trying to spin the ball. True backspin. Nice. That was a good throw. Stepping a little across my body. So, we need to get better hip rotation and combine that with finish the pointer finger out front. That was pretty good. Okay, let’s drive one down. Okay, now we’ll go breaking stuff. Cutter. Hey. Okay, now splitter. Great pitch. So, that pitch is pretty locked in. Sweeper time. Pointer finger pressure. No middle finger. Needs to come off the pointer finger. Pressing the ball through on the side. Yes, that had the sweep that we’re looking [Music] for. Nice curve ball. Didn’t feel the best about my mechanics there, but good location. So, let’s just make sure this is a good [Music] throw. Okay, I like that throw. Now, back to the fast ball. Two fast balls out of the stretch down the zone. Good throw. Backspin. Nice. I like that. Let’s go the other side of the plate. Good backspin there. So, I’ve just thought about mechanics and hand so far. I’m going to switch to the wind up with my timing disruptions, but I can only think about command. Only think about the glove. I need to be able to switch mentalities very quickly. So, that’s what I’m practicing here. But, I got to be able to look at the glove and command it and execute cuz that’s what I need to do in two days in the game. Cutter first pitch righty. Strike one. Get it down. Oh, one. Nice. We’ll go sweeper off of that. needs to be on the batters box line. Ah, pulled it too much. I almost stick a fast ball down in the way. Very nice. Okay, I’m happy with that, but the sweeper wasn’t great. Let’s go to a lefty. We are going to lead fast ball. Beautiful. We’ll go splitter off of that out of a normal leg kick. Very good. And then land a curveball on the plate. Beautiful. Now we’re going to finish fast ball up and in. [Applause] Beautiful. Thank you. Nice. Thanks. Well, while I’m getting my running in, I’m very happy with that pen. Mechanics felt pretty good. My stride stayed in the same place the entire pen, even when I wasn’t thinking about mechanics. So, I’m back on line with my stride, and that’s feeling natural. So, that’s great. The hips felt way more loose and way better. I could move a lot better. So, that was all good. The command was really good. The fast ball command was good, splitter command was really good, curveball command, everything I was very happy with outside of the sweeper. And I know exactly how to fix that tomorrow. So, all in all, a good day. Cut the weight room all to myself today. Nice and quiet. The lift for today, it’s pretty short cuz I got to start in 2 days, and I’m on 5day rotation for the first time this year. So, we’re keeping a little bit lighter this cycle. We have reverse lunge and a half kneeling single arm landmine press super set. I’m trying to move these fast like it’s a speed day. Slideboard leg curl and half kneeling single arm cable pull down with oppo reach. Tim, we got to come up with shorter names, man. Should be a pretty short day and get to it. Get a nice little stimulus. Get the body turned on and then uh 2 days from now hopefully we actually get it started. So Monday finished up well. I was happy with the lift that I got in and I was especially happy with the bullpin that I threw. I thought I got a lot of really good work in and I was ready for my next start. So, I woke up Tuesday morning with an 86 sleep score and it was off to Tokyo Dome Giants. Tomorrow I get to pitch hopefully. I don’t think it can rain in here because uh it’s a dome. So, unless it was catastrophic failure, I probably will get to pitch. I feel pretty good today. I’m like at 85 readiness, which is nice, especially after my bullpin yesterday. I feel like I’m in a good spot. I want to keep working on that pointer finger on the fast ball and the sweeper. I like playing here. It’s kind of cool. I actually grew up watching sumo wrestling and stuff and some stuff from Japan that took place in Tokyo and I played here Team USA 200 n I think freshman year of college we played a game here. I’m excited. I feel good. I’m uh I’m in a good mood and that doesn’t happen very often. Actually, I should probably be facing this way so I don’t get hit. Morning. Oh man, had a back spasm warming up. It’s no good. I get that thing loosened up before tomorrow. Little right lat issue. Have to get that worked on today. Little massage. Run right into that pole if I’m not careful. Oh, dude. I’m not rotating well because I can’t get my back to loosen up. It’ll be fine tomorrow. I think that felt really good. That was the first time I’ve thrown a sweeper in like a week that felt right. It came off my fingers correctly. Didn’t think about [Music] it. That one felt pretty good, too. Let’s try a little step behind action. Yeah, there it is. Okay, we back. I’m actually a little worried about this back thing. Like I felt it yesterday in the weight room doing my lat pull downs. Just felt like I was getting good lat activation. But now I feel like there’s something a little bit off and a little bit of a back spasm. Lower lat attachment to the ribs. 34 is not kind to me so far. Getting old man. So I headed to the training room to get that thing worked on. Now usually when you have a back spasm, it doesn’t just go away the next day. Uh it’s usually 2 or 3 days. And since this was right in the middle of my back, right where I rotate, I was definitely a little concerned for this. Fortunately, the training staff did a great job and I woke up with just a little bit of pain. Nothing that was going to bother me. It probably was going to loosen up during the start and a 90 sleep score, so I was primed and ready to go. Well, my back loosened up, which was good. Pregame bullpin was good. Feel pretty good. We got like 3 minutes till game time, so I was just getting a little rest in my locker, but uh should be a good game. I’m excited. I feel like actually excited to pitch. First time in the Tokyo Dome, so see how it goes. Well, that sucked. Five innings, five runs, a walk, seven hits, four strikeouts. They got this hitter, Okamoto. He hit two homers off me, a solo and a two-run shot. He’s now three for five lifetime against me with strikeout and three homers. So, that’s definitely Onage. Would love to show you the game footage. I’d love to show you his swing and tell you why he’s going to be a good big leager and show you the pitches that I threw him. I’d love to show you the bad luck that I had in the first inning. I’d love to show you the strikeouts. I’d love to show you all of it, but uh I am not allowed to use any of the footage. So yeah, that’s all you get. Okamoto, he’s really good. He’s going to play in the States one day, probably next year. And uh he’s going to be very good. We lost tonight 5 nothing. And this definitely harms my sort chances. Basically have to go eight innings, one run allowed for the next month to get back to a reasonable erra. We’re sitting at 49 right now. So tonight just sucks overall. Now, usually on game nights, I sleep like crap, especially after I pitch poorly. There’s a lot of psychological stuff going on, just like depression and a lot of physical stuff going on cuz you’re tired from the game. But actually, I didn’t sleep terribly. I still managed an 81 sleep score. So, that put me ahead of the game for recovery headed into this next start. Fine. Well, the last thing I want to do today is workout. I just want to do nothing. But, uh, that’s not going to help me have a good start next time. So, we’re going to work out anyway. Need to trick myself mentally into getting after it cuz I’m not really interested today in doing that. But having bad starts sucks. Some good things about last night. My stuff was really good. No, I didn’t locate very well. That’s a bad thing. But, uh, stuff was there and body feels pretty good and energy levels felt good during the game. Felt like I could run it up there 95, 96, whenever I needed it. Splitter movement was not elite, but good. All the movements were good. Also, no stolen bases. So, my work that I’ve been doing on limiting stolen bases is good. Walking the guy with two outs, walking lead off hitter, those are things that just can’t happen. Um, and that’s just a mental mistake. It’s not a physical problem. And then last night when I gave up the second homer to Okamoto, I was literally just like, “Okay, don’t throw this guy a strike. Just unintentional intentional walk him.” And then I threw a fast ball right down the middle. Just a mental mistake. And that’s a tough pill to swallow because that’s something I can definitely control and I need to get better at that. Not sure exactly how I’m going to do that, but uh those are my takeaways from the game. Yeah, Tokyo Dome. Our weight room is in the hallway. So, this is my home for the next hour or so as I get my lift in. Morning. Hi, good morning. Hey, morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. So, this one might look like I’m just laying on the bench, but what I’m actually doing is trying to lengthen the TFL area here. So, I’m using my left foot to hook my right foot and pull it down. Using my right hand to anchor at the top of the bench, trying to get a stretch through the lat, the oblique, and the TFL. Okay, pretty sketchy squat rack. Sketchiest part about this is putting the weight back on the rack cuz if you have to like lean it forward, then the whole rack’s just going to go over. So, got to be controlled. Even though I’m trying to move [Applause] fast and then you spin back and then up. It was a great bullpen for me, but unfortunately the day was not great for the team. We lost again to fall to 69 and two on the year. So yeah, things were not going well and I was starting to feel even more pressure to pitch well cuz we were in a slump and I had the Tigers coming up who I’ve not pitched well against traditionally and I needed a good outing. So I had some uh psychological stress going on. But even with that, I woke up with an 88 sleep score. So recovery was going great. My sleep routines are dialed in. I just got to put it together and pitch well. Well, we won last night. Thank God for that because we didn’t get swept. Tough series for us, but at least we uh at least we got out of there with a win. It’s an off day for me. I spent the last like hour and a half or two hours catching up on writing throwing programs. You guys really seem to like the last segment I did, so I figured I’d do another one where I break down someone’s delivery. So, this is Tai. Now, he came in throwing 76 with pain in his elbow and said that he’s trying to fix some stuff in his mechanics. So, let’s check out how he was from the side angle here. So, not much forward momentum in the drift. That’s the first thing I saw. And then can’t get much forward momentum in the drop because of the lack of drift. That’s leading to a vertical front shin, which means he can’t block on his front leg and continue to rotate his hips and create power. He has pretty good scap load and spiral. The problem is he’s pronating his hand. So now when I go to load, I have to load my elbow up. And this is not the most natural position for the arm to be in. It puts a lot of stress here on the shoulder and a lot of stress on the elbow that doesn’t need to be there. Ideally, you would take the ball out of your glove in a handshake position where the back of your hand is pointing towards second base, the palm of your hand is pointing towards home plate. And this is a much more natural human position. You grab a cup like this, you shake a hand like this. We operate in this kind of range with our hands. So, he came in with a little bit of throwing pain in the elbow and he just submitted a new video for analysis. So, 40 days later, he is at 81. So, he’s gained 5 mph. He said that he liked the program a lot. His areas of throwing pain is none. So, he’s gotten rid of the elbow pain. Let’s check out his delivery and see what we see. So, right here we see a little bit more drift. It’s still not a lot, but there is a little bit more. Right as the leg is hitting top of leg lift, you can see his left hip slide forward. There’s more depth in the back leg. So, here he’s actually now carrying the center of mass down into his backside. And you can see the angle on the back shin is actually tilting inward now a little bit. So, he’s getting more momentum towards the plate. You can see the before and after here. How short the stride is in the first video and how long the stride is in the second video. Look how the elbow is staying below the shoulder line. If you draw a line through the shoulders, you want to see your elbow stay below that. Right? So, if you draw a line here, my elbow should be below that or at it, never above it. And he’s doing a really good job of that right here. Look how balanced he is from the backside. All of his energy is going directly to the plate. Everything rotates around and finishes and he ends up in a very balanced position. no energy leaking one way or the other. So, that’s fantastic. Now that you’ve seen the before and the after, how did we make those changes? So, we had a rear foot elevated drop throw and a posture squat drill. The posture squat is to get you deeper into your backside to find the depth that you can get to. And then the rear foot elevated drop throw is to get rid of that early dropping. So, those two things seem to help with that drift and the drop issue. The block phase, landing too softly and a vertical front shin. So, we programmed a walking javelin step and a static 45 uh block focus drill. So, the static 45, you’re setting up in the right position, focusing on extending that leg. The walking javelin, you’re moving into that position, working on accepting force, and driving the leg straight to rotate that hip. Again, I’d say those are probably successes in this. So, everything in this program seems to be working to make the mechanical changes that we’re looking for. And if you want me to do an analysis just like this for you, you can scan this QR code right here. Sign up for the ultimate pitching program. I do these analyses every single day for pitchers just like you. And we get these results all the time. 85% of people are gaining velocity in the first 30 days. It’s pretty incredible. 85% get better command and 60% are feeling healthier when doing these programs. So if you want better health, better command, and better stuff, scan the QR code, sign up for Ultimate Pitching Program. I’ll do this analysis for you and we’ll get you throwing harder. Well, back at it. It is Saturday, Sunday. I don’t know what day it is. Baseball season’s in full effect. I’m playing catch today. That’s about it. Haven’t thrown for two days. So, just get the arm moving. Body feels really good. Recovering well from my last start. Got a bullpin tomorrow and then I’ll pitch again on Tuesday. Pretty quick day. Just going to play some athletic catch with Dre and that’s about it for today. Okay. Well, in looking at my last game, I think the main problem was not getting ahead in the count. And the second problem was not getting breaking balls down in the zone. I think it was the hips originally cuz I couldn’t finish the pitch. But now that my hips are feeling good, I got to make an effort to drive the ball down in the game, specifically on breaking balls. I was actually really good at it in the game that got cancelled, and I was pretty good at it in the first game, too. So maybe I just had one weird off outing. But yeah, basically I have to be scoreless my next two outings this month, which is tough. However, just cuz it’s tough doesn’t mean it’s not doable. We got tigers and we got carp this month. So uh just got to be really dialed in. I was looking at my start from a couple days ago and uh threw a lot of good pitches. Actually, I was behind in the count, which is the biggest thing. I just got to get ahead. But a lot of the pitches that got hit wen’t even bad pitches. The two to Okamoto were right in the middle. So it is what it is. So I just need to work on command. I don’t need to like over complicate it today. see the target, be aggressive to hit the target. Try to drive this off speed stuff down. Just want to try to miss below the zone with some off speed early in the pen and then uh just work on getting through the ball, but I don’t want to get too like analytical with it. I threw the ball well. My stuff was good. Location was generally good. Just got a little unlucky. I had to have a I enjoy baseball throwing session. Little fun pen. Now, one thing I did discover a couple days ago is keeping my glove side elevated is helping me right now. So, that’s like the only cue that I’m gonna think about today other than getting my hand through the ball. Making sure that my Oh, boy. making sure that my front shoulder doesn’t go down too early. That’s helping me get through the ball at the end. Goal here is to keep the hand through the ball and get the offspeed stuff down, but I can’t yank it down. It’s got to be true over the plate downs. Let’s get hitters down. Okay. Those two are good. Try cutter below the zone over the plate. I like that. Same thing down. Okay. Very good. Same thing with the splitter. Very good. I’m happy with that. That’s fine. Let’s do fast ball. Just reset. All right. Sweeper down, but it’s got to be on the plate. No, no, no. I did not finish that. That’s a nice ball. It’s no good. Get through the ball. Throw it down. No. It’s good movement, but it’s not down. It’s got to be down below the zone on the plate there. Oh, bounce it on the plate. Very good pitch. I think I hit the plate actually. Very happy with that pitch. Now a little bit longer, but below the zone for good. Focused on down. I just focus on spots and sequencing, but got to stay down. Let’s do a righty and go fast ball away. Pretty good. Definitely got through that one. That was nice. Same thing. Cutter down away. [Applause] No. Down there. That was better. Let’s go this one. Sweeper down though. That’s the feel I got to get rid of. Let’s do fast ball up and in. Overall, I’d say that sequence was a pass. Wasn’t great. Let’s try lefty. We’ll curve ball for a strike. Now we want splitter below the zone. Nice. Now we’ll go fast ball up and away for chase. Now I’ll go curve ball on the plate. Nice. That sequence was great. Very happy with that. Very good. Thank you. Oh, Monday’s off day, but uh I pitched tomorrow, so considered taking it off cuz I had a good bullpin yesterday, but figured it was probably better to come in and play some catch. I looked at some mechanic stuff from yesterday in the pen. Looks pretty good. I’m stepping a little bit across my body and my hips aren’t rotating quite as much as I would like. But I don’t really want to think about any of that today because I got to pitch tomorrow and my command was pretty good yesterday. So, just going to try to do some hip rotation drills and think about command, getting my fingers through the ball early in catch play, but then I don’t want to think about it too much. I want to just move around and feel athletic. Today is just about having some fun, throwing nice and easy, getting the hips rotating, and making sure everything’s sharp for tomorrow. Could we just have this weather every day? Now lat’s a little bit tight today. Kind of at the bottom of the lat where it attaches to the rib. Same place I had the back spasm. So we’re going to do our best to avoid that today. [Applause] It’s kind of what you want on the sweeper though, right? Yeah. But I just need swings which last game was better cuz it strike longer. Yeah. Like I’m okay with strike the ball, but I’m also want the ability to like have the movement in the strike zone. Yeah. Sweeper. Hey, throw it down away to a lefty. A sweeper. Yeah. Down away to lefty. Yeah. Try to hit the down away corner, but don’t cast it like you’re still throwing an aggressive pitch down away. High low ball. Watch out. Now, if you get it down, that’s your inzone movement. That’s the one you want right there. You going to punch dude here. Yeah. That was good. That’s a trick. Yeah. Oh, the last outing was um told us that it was a tough one, but uh how did you uh prepare this? Same way I always prepare. I just got my body right, lifted, threw a bullpen, analyzed the start, picked the thing I need to work on and worked on it. Yeah, faced the Tigers before two years ago. Um, but, uh, coming back again and then facing them, same team again, uh, Tigers, do you have any impression about this team? I know they’re a good team. I know they can hit the ball well and they put up good at bats. So, it’ll be a fun game. coming from you making a transition from from Mexico to Japan. Um is there anything that you are kind of like you know struggling right now? Nope. Or maybe um how the balls are breaking. Nope. Uh you have made a lot of adjustments coming back from from two years ago. Um how you feeling with the you know the uh the adjustments that you made? I feel great. My body feels good. Like everything in my pitches feel good. My pitches are probably better than they were last time I was here. So, I feel really good. What’s um tomorrow? Today’s is Maki, Captain Maky’s birthday, and you know, tomorrow might be your first win game. Um any sort of message or you know, personal goal? Yeah, personal. I I hope Maki gets five home runs for his birthday. nice birthday present. Um, we I don’t know. I think I think a win would be uh good for both of us. I think we’d both enjoy that. So, with the media done, all that was left is to pitch well and get that team win. I finished up at the field with my contrast therapy and headed home. I didn’t get the best night’s sleep. I got an 84. It’s still good. And with the week of sleep that I’d had leading up to it, I felt refreshed and ready to go for the Tigers. Game day. Tigers. We got a lot of lefties in the lineup. Pretty stock approach to the lefties. A lot of splitters, a lot of curve balls. Move the fast ball around. Couple key guys. Oh, hello. Hello. Couple key at bats here. Mauric and Sato. Sato’s like scalding hot right now. Going to pitch around him if need be. Not going to make the same mistake as uh last game. Do not want to let their best hitter beat me. I really want to be aggressive like mentality wise. I think last game I was a little bit for whatever reason passive. I wasn’t in like full-on aggressive mode from the start of the game. Pretty much pushed up against a wall here where I can’t have another bad outing because then uh my erra will not be recoverable. So need to have a good one today. We’ll see what happens. But uh slept okay, feel pretty good. No, no health concerns, no ailments. Should be a good one. So the first inning started off really well. This is Chikamoto and first pitch ground ball to the first baseman. So can’t really ask for much more than that. Now, I was a little bit surprised that he swung cuz usually he’s pretty patient, but I’ll take it nonetheless. Next up is Nakano, and he takes first pitch as he should have after a first pitch out. Pretty safe bet that the next guy is going to be taking in the first inning. So, get ahead 01. Two for two on first pitch strikes. And a good curve ball to go to 02. And I have a high fast tunnel with a curveball starting above it. So, I’m feeling pretty good about where this bat’s at. I got a lot of different options. And there you can see exactly what I mean. I throw another curve ball outer half of the plate and well below the zone. going to bounce in the dirt and he still somehow gets the bat on it. It’s a little weak chopper to me. Field it so didn’t mess it up. My fielding woes hopefully in the past but two quick outs which is great. Get ahead third first pitch strike of the inning which is great. And now we have cutters and sliders open. We have splitter down back foot open. So throwing that first pitch in the zone and getting ahead really sets the tone for the bat. Now that was not a very good sweeper but it started at him and he kind of buckled a little bit. So we’re ahead 02 but I definitely don’t want to be throwing that one too often. That on the other hand was a very good sweeper and he didn’t budge at it at all. Likely because I haven’t set up that outside tunnel for a strike. I threw that fast ball in which started middle and ran in. I threw the sweeper in that ran back. So didn’t really have a tunnel set up there for the outside slider. So one, two, I went back to the slider and I got it perfectly in the shadow zone. But that’s the third slider he’s seen in a row and that one was getting more hitable than the one before. I need to be conscious of that not repeating too many pitches. Even though I have good matchup pitches against someone, I still got to balance it out with other pitches. So something to note. So with that mind, I decided to go with a slide step fast ball in. See if I could sneak a fast ball by him, but I didn’t really do it. So I got to remember that for the next at bat. I got a read on him where he’s at. He’s looking to pull something. He’s pulling his hands in and he can catch up to VO inside there. Clean first inning. Three for three on first pitch strikes. Check out the second. So after falling behind 10, I thought I’d throw a fast ball up and in, but he got the barrel of this ball really well. Uh and it wasn’t even a strike. Lead off triple to start the second is not where I want to be. I’m definitely looking to get some punch outs here and not let the run score, but I’m also not going to be super fine and end up walking people and turn this into a bigger inning than it needs to be. Most important thing here is to get the next guy out. We are ahead 01, which is great. That’s where we need to be. First pitch strikes, three out of four. So, after hanging the first sweeper, I decided to go back to it and I threw a really good one, but he didn’t budge at it at all. I thought I’d come back 1-1 with a fast ball down in the way, but I just didn’t quite get it there. I left it elevated and that’s where he can get to it. And that’s what happens when you miss your spot. But I did get an out. So I’ll take that early in the game. One run’s not going to kill me. One out, nobody on my EA at the plate. Throw strike one. Throw fast ball kind of up middle and get a nice little pop up off the handle. So that’s a great way to follow up the sack fly. One pitch, one out. We’re still cruising right along. No big deal. Five for six on first pitch strikes. Stole a strike right there on a fast ball down the middle. So we’re ahead 01. So many options being ahead 02, which is like a key to this game. And you’ll see here in a couple seconds when things start to shift what happened. I started getting behind in the count. But let’s finish this bet first. Now, if that sweeper was a little bit closer to the zone, I’d probably get the swing and miss. So one, two, I went back to the sweeper and I left this one in the zone again. We get through the second, gave up one on one hit. But we’re six for seven on first pitch strikes and keeping the pitch count down. Cruising right along. So leading up the third, we got the eight hole hitter. Now it’s really important here to get this guy out. First splitter of the day. Had really good run to it. just missed the zone. So 1-1. I need to throw a strike right here. Chose to go back to the splitter and that was nowhere close. So definitely struggling with the command of that so far in this game. Those two haven’t really been competitive. It’s not the best pitch, but it is down in the zone and I get a nice little weak ground ball at second base. So we are seven for eight on first pitch strikes and rolling right along. Pitcher up next. Now there’s not much to break down about this at bat as you watch their pitcher hit, but he’s one of the better pitchers in Japan. He throws pretty darn hard up to like 96, 97. really good life on his fast ball, which I find out after this at bat when I have to face him. So, we’ll check that out after this next at bat. Back to the top of the order with Chikamoto. Now, if you watch his body language here, he had no intention of swinging the bat at this pitch in my opinion. He swung at the first pitch of the game and then he was autotaking right here. And I needed to throw the splitter for a strike. It had great depth to it, but when someone’s not looking to swing, this pitch does me no good. When I threw a fast ball down coming right off that split tunnel, so now I have split down ball, fast ball down, strike. So I open up the split for a swing later in the at bat. And that’s exactly what we get on the 1-1. He starts his swing a little out in front and get a nice little weak fly ball. Great way to finish the third. Now I have to hit which is my least favorite thing. First pitch fast ball above the zone. That looked really, really fast. That was not comfortable being in the box there. But I am ahead 10. I thought that one ran off the plate inside a little bit, but he got the call back to 1-1. And now I’m thinking maybe I’ve seen two heaters. Like if I’m on the mound, I probably don’t want to throw a third heater, but he’s probably going to throw me one. Maybe I get a chance to hit this one. And I got a pitch that I could hit. I just was way late on it. Like like if that pitch was 90, I might have hit it, but it was like 94 and I was nowhere close. And that strike three pitch looked way outside when he threw it and way down, but it definitely wasn’t. Um that’s me just being a terrible hitter. Back to the mound. So leading off two-hole hitter No. And I don’t know about you guys, but that looked like a strike to me live. Not sure where it missed. I guess outside maybe. So I’m going to break down the first three innings. Eight for 10 first pitch strikes. Let’s look at the next four innings. So far 0 for one first pitch strike. Fast ball up in way late. So I need to go back in there. Maybe a cutter on the hands. Something like that. A lot of different options here. We’ve worked our way back from 1 to 1. So in a good spot. That was a really well executed pitch and did not get any sort of trigger at all after being late on the fast ball up and in. Was definitely surprising. So good take on his part. 22. I tried to go back to the split and threw an uncompetitive pitch. Now we’re 3-2, which is not where I want to be. I need to throw a strike. I got to force the action. If he gets a hit here, it’s better than walk. And that’s exactly what happened. I finally execute a fast ball down and away. And he like takes this half swing little flick and hits the ball off the end of the bat and not hard at all and somehow finds a hole. Ground ball right here would be great for a double play. I’m trying to be conscious here of mixing up my hold times so that the runner can’t get a good jump and also being quick to the plate. Start off with a cutter. Just missed non-competitive pitch. So that doesn’t really do anything for me. Plus, I’m behind 10 again. So 0 for two on first pitch strikes. Got to get back in the count here. And don’t want to groove a fast ball down the middle cuz that could end up as a homer. So I chose to go with the cutter. Hard hit ball right up the middle. First and third, nobody out with Sato at the plate. Not where I want to be. This is the worst situation to face their best hitter. That was a very odd reaction by him on the first pitch curve ball. He’s very jumpy and didn’t look comfortable. So I decided to go back to it. And he didn’t look comfortable on that one at all either. So now I’m 02 and I’m thinking, okay, I got a chance at a strike out here. I decided to try to bounce a curveball and unfortunately I left it in the zone and I give up a run and I don’t get an out. I got to find a way out of this somehow and it is not looking good at all. Next up is Oyama and I need to get ahead here which I do with a sweeper but not a great one. That’s two for four on first pitch strikes. I threw another sweeper 01 which is way better but he didn’t really I he started his hands a little bit but there wasn’t a ton of buy in there. We got a pop up on the infield which is fantastic. An absolute godsend here. We get ahead 01. We’re now three for five on first pitch strikes after the third inning. So, doing okay so far. And that’s exactly what I was hoping for on the first pitch. It’s a little weak ground ball somewhere. And we do a good job there catching the ball, cutting the run down at home plate. Good job by my first baseman there. And really good job by my catcher to secure the ball and get the tag down. Anyway, we’re ahead 01, four for six. So things are going pretty good. First pitch strikes. Not doing too bad here. Threw another sweeper. This one for a strike. So I throw a really good sweeper. Shadow zone. Third one in a He fouls it off weekly, but he doesn’t look good on any of them. So now I’m thinking, do I go four in a row? And ultimately, I thought that three in a row was probably enough. Threw a good pitch. Unfortunately, it’s a ball, but I didn’t give up a hit, so that’s all fine and dandy. Still one, two. We’re still in a power count. I decided to go back to the sweeper. Threw a really good one, but he didn’t really budge at it. So I’m thinking maybe he didn’t really have to respect that fast ball away. He took it, it was off the plate, and he saw the same kind of look and he took that with the sweeper as well. So I’m going to go back to the fast ball and make sure I throw this one in the zone. I painted 96 on the black away, but he definitely didn’t take it. I executed my pitch and he did a good job fouling it off. And now that he swung, I’m like, “Okay, you’ve seen that tunnel. You swung at it. Now you’re going to have to swing at the slider away.” Like, you can’t be on that fast ball and also take the slider. It’s very, very hard to do. But when my catcher called curveball, I was like, “Oh, you know what? That’s actually a good idea here. He’s kind of seeing the slider. He’s seen a lot of them. He’s seen the fast ball away. Maybe I can land a curveball below the zone. Maybe he swings over the top of it. Maybe I bounce it and he swings at it. I get what I want, which is an out. So top five splitter in the dirt ball. So now we’re four for seven. And I do a good job of coming back and throwing a strike, but he lays down a perfect bunt. Now you can’t really defend that. Now in this situation, I’m fine just taking it out. If he bunts it in play, get the ball, give him their sacrifice, I’ll take the out. But when I saw him not look good on the fast ball, I was like, “Oh, you know what? Maybe I can find a way to strike him out. He doesn’t look comfortable bunting.” So then I started kind of chasing a strike out a little bit. And I get a strikeout on three foul bunts, which is my first one of the day. kind of pathetic, but I’ll take that. First pitch, he took off to try to get to second and ends up stealing the base. Now, I think I was pretty fast to the plate here. I think we had a chance at him at second, but it would have had to be a really good throw, and unfortunately, we give up that stolen base. Also, we’re behind 10, so four for eight on first pitch strikes. Throw splitter middle kind of looked like he thought he should have hit that one, but we get back to 1-1. tried to go down and away with the fast bulbs and he hit it like 10 m an hour and of course just happened to find a hole which is exactly why I didn’t want to give up the stolen base and I did and it cost me a run immediately. Extremely frustrating. So another really good splitter but it’s O and he didn’t look like he had any intention of swinging and we’re behind 1. So 4 for9 on first pitch strikes and I think you can kind of see the direction this is going. I’m just behind in the count a lot. I execute a fast ball up and away really well. Get the swing to get to one two, but I give up another stolen base. Tried the curve ball in the dirt. I’m not exactly sure how the runner didn’t advance to third. There was a great job by my catcher just to block that ball. And thankfully, he didn’t. So, props to Yamamoto back there. I thought about splitter down and away, hoping to get the swing and miss. Unfortunately, I pulled it. So, I decided just to go with what my catcher called. He called fast ball up and in, which I executed really well. And I get a little weak ground ball. Really frustrating inning, but it could have spiraled and I did a good job of minimizing it. First pitch, I execute a really good sweeper in a good zone and I get my popup. So, I don’t feel like I’m throwing the ball poorly. I don’t think I’m getting hit around the yard and it’s just things are happening in the exact wrong order and yeah, frustrating. Anyway, after that inning, we ended up loading the bases with two outs. Now, we were hoping to get some runs on the board, but that brought me to the plate. It’s the first at bat that I’ve had to take competitively in like 2 years. So, yeah, first pitch fast ball down and away paint. I’m behind 01. Now, that one I probably could have hit. It’s just he’s got this really lifty fast ball and I swung underneath it. I’m behind O2 so this is not looking good. Probably chase ball one right there, but I did foul it off so staying alive. He tries a fast ball away which I get. He tried to paint it. We’re one two. The next pitch is same spot basically. We’re 2-2 and now I’m like, hey, he’s probably not going to throw me a breaking ball here because he doesn’t want to go 3-2. Doesn’t want to take a chance of walking me. He’s throwing me all fast balls. Like, hey, I might get a fast ball to hit here. And I got my fast ball. was probably a ball pretty close to the zone there again. It just it’s that lifty fast ball and I couldn’t get the barrel to it. So, I head back out down 3 nothing. First pitch fast ball up and in. Fall behind 10. So, now we’re I think four for 10 on first pitch strikes. I tried the splitter down and away, which I hadn’t thrown him yet and I missed really poorly. And now 20, I was like, uh, I don’t want to walk the lead off hitter, but I also don’t want to just groom him something to hit. 20, I tried the cutter up and in, thinking maybe I’d get a swing and a cheap jam shot. and he started on it, but I missed the zone a little bit too much and we’re behind 3 0 and now I’m like, “All right, I’m just going to walk you.” I still think it’s a bad walk here. I probably should have forced the action a little bit, but I mean, he’s two for two off of me. Take a pass. Try to get the guy on deck. So, I execute a really good cutter down and away. And I get exactly what I want, which is a ground ball in the infield. And somehow this is a hit. Ball’s not even hit hard enough to really dribble out of the infield. And now it’s first and second, nobody out. I start him off with a curve ball and miss. So now we’re behind 1 again, 4 for 11. Now we’re behind 2 0 and I’m like this inning is going to spiral and it’s just like those thoughts started creeping into my head and yeah, I was very frustrated. So I went with a high leg kick and I actually executed a really good fast ball down and away and got a cheap popup in a 20 count. Thank god. And now I’m like gh a breath of fresh air. If I can get a double play here, I’m out of this with no runs. I’m ahead 01. And I’m like, okay, I can work with this now. Threw a nasty sweeper, but it was nowhere close. Waste pitch. So came in with the fast ball and got a like little weak fly ball out to right field. So two outs, first and third, get an out. Dot a first pitch slider down and away. And he clearly did not like the look of that. He was getting out of the box. I was like, “Okay, he’s not seeing Ospeed very well at all.” Tried to go with that same pitch again. I didn’t want to leave it in the zone and take a chance that he like flares something. So I decided to throw a fast ball in the zone. Threw it 96 up at the top and blew it by him. So he got a little bit of the medicine that I got in my last at bat with bases loaded. Kind of interesting how both pitchers came up with bases loaded. And we got exactly what we needed there and exactly what we set up, which is a strikeout. So, another inning where we limit the damage. But I mean, this thing is just such a grind mentally this game. Headed back out for the seventh. Chikamoto up and he has not looked interested in swinging any first pitches. So, I tried to throw a cutter in the zone, but I missed. So, we’re now behind yet again 1. I don’t know where that ball missed, but somehow I’m behind 2 0. So, I got to throw a strike. 3 0. He’s probably not swinging here. So, I figured I’d throw a fast ball right down the middle, get back to 3-1. I decided to go with another fast ball to force the action and unfortunately threw it in the exact same spot and gave up a homer. But in the in the scheme of things, I think that’s the right decision to force the action there. Now, it wasn’t a good pitch and I probably could have thrown another pitch there, but I don’t want to walk him. Frustrating way to uh start off the seventh. So, knock up next. Fast ball in the outer half and he pounds it right into the ground. So, great. a weak ground ball in the infield except of course it finds a hole. So now we got Morishida. Start him off with a sweeper. Kind of bad one just hanging in the middle but at least we’re ahead again. And 01 I threw another sweeper and finally a ball is hit hard enough to make it to my infielder and turn a double play. We have two outs and Sat’s at the plate. So I decided to go the first pitch curveball. Now unfortunately I missed by quite a lot. I decided to stick with the curveball and try to throw it for a strike. I get a little weak ground ball there and that ended the night. So seven innings, two strikeouts, two walks. I wouldn’t consider either of them bad walks. One was an intentional unintentional walk to Sato and one of them was an actual intentional walk. Thought my command was pretty darn good actually. I think I got really unlucky and I need to get ahead in the count more. The team did end up scoring two runs in the bottom of the seventh to make it 4-2, but we couldn’t close the gap and that was my third loss on the year. So I’m 0 and3 with like a mid five RA right now and this feels very much like 2023. Hopefully, it’s a carbon copy the rest of the year and I stay healthy and I end up putting up a 1 six for the rest of the year cuz that’s what I did after my first three starts in 2023. So, there’s hope. There’s hope for the future. But, man, I need to pray to the gods or something. The baseball gods. Please, just can it just be normal baseball where some of the balls go to people? That’d be nice.

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