Problematic, for sure. I try to chalk it up to rookie-ness, learning MLB, the strike zone, and such. There are scattered times where Diasuke absolutely baffle hitters. Those times are few and far between in the last few starts.
He's only going to get worse. I posted that in another thread. It's the 5 man rotation vs the 6 man in Japan. This is happening with people seeing him for the first time. Just wait until these major league hitters have seen him 2 or 3 times.
Did I mention: At Fenway Code: G GS W L SV CG SHO IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP BAA Fenway Park 3 3 1 1 0 0 0 19.0 21 16 16 1 7 12 7.58 1.47 .276
I don't care if he was a Royal. You can't call a guy a bust after 6 starts in his first season in the majors.
Maybe not but all the signs are there. He should be dominating teams. He has 8 or 9 or whatever years of experience and nobody has seen him before. If he was that good he would look like he did in game 1.
I wonder how much tape they had on this guy from over in Japan. With other foreign pitchers the pattern seems to be they got off to pretty good starts then faded into obscurity as the league saw them more.
I think the verdict is still out. But I do believe that he had the initial advantage with hitters not having seen him before. Things are only going to get more difficult. Then again, he might have just hit a bad stretch.
If you want to know if he is going to be a bust just keep an eye on his fastball. In game 1 they said he was throwing it at 96-97. By the time the yankees saw him the first series he was down to 92-93. Even then he was throwing more junk and the yankees knew it was coming. Everybody in the lineup hit him hard. If it goes any lower he will be nothing but average at best. Again, I say this is because he isn't getting the extra day of rest he has had his whole career. Over the course of the year this will have a gradually worsening effect on him. I thought what we are seeing now wouldn't happen until the all star break. The fact that it is means he could even end up injured.
Whoah, whoah. . . . can we give him more than six starts to see if just the opposite happens? The difference between what he's throwing now and how he was throwing for Seibu is just one day, and the compensation for that is in pitch count. In Japan, he threw with an added day of rest, but he also threw later into games, threw for more complete games, and, generally, threw more pitches per start. Here, he's not going to have the opportunity to close out his own games, unless he's throwing something spectacular. I'll take all heat on this for now, though. I'd certainly be dishing it out if he were in pinstripes.
What other explanation do you have for what has happened to his fast ball in only 5 games? Is he injured? You just don't lose that much velocity in a few starts at the beginning of the season. Then again..who knows how accurate these radar guns are from stadium to stadium.
But velocity wasn't his big problem last night. It was control. He just threw some amazingly bad pitches, at times. I have a theory that I'm working on. Needs more time in the lab, but I think he gets frustrated quicker than people imagined he would. He shows subtle signs of disappointment, when he thinks he threw a strike, and he gets nothing but a click our of the umpire. He always seems to look composed, but I'm not so sure he is.
Exactly. I am not a Red Sox supporter in anyway, but you have to give the guy an opportunity to have a full season before you put any sort of label on him.
Maybe it was the hype. Everybody expected him to be lights out with his 9000 pitches and gyroball. That's all we heard. The fact he looks like a bust now is because of the level of the hype. If they had just said this guy looks like he may be a good pitcher, we wouldn't even be having this discussion now.
A bust? Sorry, I gotta agree with guys like FITM and Sundayjack. It's freaking May. If we're writing him off now as a failure, we may as well say the Yankees will miss the playoffs by 15 games. The guy can't be automatic every night (even the great Mo Rivera isn't.) He'll be fine in a couple months, once all the hype dies down a bit, and he settles in.
