Shota Imanaga stopped to chat Saturday at Tokyo Dome after the Hanshin Tigers shut out his Chicago Cubs 3-0, and reflected on his first year in MLB, and his desire to further acclimate himself to his new environment. On another note, the ball being thrown by the Japanese teams’ pitchers in this weekend’s exhibitions appear to be leftovers from last-year’s dead NPB ball.
Imanaga’s adjustments
—What worked best for you last year?
“Keeping things simple.”
—I heard Kyuji Fujikawa advised you last spring to find what works for you there and not to try and get by based simply on what had worked in Japan, and that impressed me. What did you take away from that?”
“Of course, I can’t do things I’m not capable of, but apart from that I took his advice to heart.”
—What is the biggest adjustment you are still struggling with?
“Honestly, I’m still not completely used to the ball. I also haven’t completely internalized the strike zone, so I still can’t predict whether a batter will swing at a given pitch or not. If I can understand that even a little better, I can apply more reasoned thought to my pitching.”
—What was the biggest area of personal growth for you?
“I think I’ve gotten better at not dwelling on what happened after I give up a hit, so it doesn’t negatively affect my next pitch.”
—But you were pretty good at that here…
“But that is something I’ve been even more aware of in America, because you have fewer days between starts, so you can’t hold on to that baggage.”
—What impressed you about the Tigers’ pitchers today?
“It was instructive for me how (Tigers starter Keito) Mombetsu pitched to our hitters. He’s young but was composed. His stuff was not the best but he hung in there.”
Speaking of balls
One of the hot topics after the game was the failure of the well-struck balls Cubs batters hit to carry. Throwing NPB balls that have become increasingly dead the past four years, the Cubs smoked three of them off Mombetsu, two of them by Seiya Suzuki, and all of which were caught.
Suzuki absolutely hammered a hanging 2-1 sinker in the fourth inning, with an exit velocity of 111 miles per hour and a 20-degree launch angle that according to Baseball Savant would have been a home run in MLB 56 percent of the time. All three batted balls would have produced hits more than 80 percent of the time in MLB.
The baseballs in NPB have grown gradually deader, but their flight properties plunged last spring when well-hit balls were coming apart at the seams. An NPB executive confirmed last year that last year Mizuno began manufacturing its balls for Japan’s elite leagues in Taiwan after producing them for years in China.
For one reason or another, the balls used in the second half were only marginally deader than in previous years. Dr. Meredith Wills, who has forgotten more about the properties of baseballs than I will ever learn, said it was unlikely a correction could have been made so quickly due to the supply-chain logistics needed to produce a season’s worth of baseballs.
But because the home run rates surged to near normal in the middle of last summer, I’m guessing there are a lot of balls left over from 2024 that were not used because they were substandard, and that the Tigers and Giants will be throwing them this weekend.
