New Pitch Update: Uehara, Matsuzaka

» 29 March 2009 » In mlb »

As MLB camps wrap up, players are making their final tweaks before the regular season starts. For Koji Uehara, that means finally testing his new pitches in a game situation. Uehara is planning on testing his newly-developed changeup in his  appearance today against the Mets. No word on whether the curve ball he was working on will make an appearance.

Meanwhile, Daisuke Matsuzaka took a souvenier home from the WBC — a new forkball. I was a little surprised to see that in the news, because Matsuzaka threw a forkball in Japan and I didn’t realize he stopped in MLB. Apparently he couldn’t keep his forkball under control with an MLB ball, and didn’t throw any forks at all last season. The WBC afforded him the opportunity to work with noted forkballers Hisashi Iwakuma and Yu Darvish, who gave him some tips on how to thow the pitch. Matsuzaka threw five forkballs in his first bullpen session with the Red Sox, and said it’s possible that he’ll use it during the season.

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  1. Patrick
    Nelson
    30/03/2009 at 5:12 pm Permalink

    Hi Patrick, The NY Post (ugh, personal feeling about the paper) just reported Ken Takahashi sign with the Mets to a minor-league deal.

    “The Japanese left-hander was released earlier in the day by the Blue Jays.”

    http://blogs.nypost.com/sports/mets/archives/2009/03/takahashi_signs.html
    Posted by Bart Hubbuch on March 30, 2009 7:41 PM EST (NY Post)

  2. Patrick
    Patrick
    30/03/2009 at 5:37 pm Permalink

    That’s interesting — note that Takahashi’s release has not yet been listed on the Jays’ transactions page: http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/team/transactions.jsp?c_id=tor

    Maybe because he’s not on the 40-man roster?

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  1. [...] we first learned from commenter Nelson, the Blue Jays have released lefty Ken Takahashi. Baseball sources have confirmed his…