A year after he struggled mightily to control Major League Baseball's official ball while pitching for Japan's national team, Yuki Matsui said Tuesday he has turned that corner this spring by making an attitude adjustment.
Unable to command the MLB ball used in the World Baseball Classic last year, Samurai Japan manager Hideki Kuriyama benched the left-handed closer after he had thrown just one inning.
Undeterred by that experience, Matsui joined the San Diego Padres in the offseason and will begin his first MLB season in Seoul against the National League West-rival Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday.
After practice at Seoul's Gocheok Sky Dome, Matsui said he has found his way by focusing on what he had to work with, the MLB ball that is slicker, harder to grip, and a tiny bit heavier and larger than the ones he threw en route to 236 career saves in Japan.
"Mentally, it was about the differences between the Japanese ball and the American ball," he said in English at Gocheok Sky Dome, gesturing as if to weigh and examine an imaginary ball in each hand. "Here, it's only the American baseball, and I only adjust to that."
Another new MLB lefty, the Chicago Cubs' Shota Imanaga, said recently that he had developed a feel for the MLB ball and adopted some new ways to use his pitches by not trying to replicate exactly how he pitched in Japan. And Matsui has found that helpful, too.
"If you try to throw this ball the same way you threw that one, it's tough. But once you realize this is the ball you are working with, you can narrow your focus," Matsui said, switching to Japanese.
In a spring that has become a process of exploration, Matsui said he has discovered that he can do a few things with the MLB ball he could not do with the ones he had been used to in Japan.
His fastball, he said, behaves differently with the MLB ball, with more "cut," or movement to the glove side -- away from left-handed hitters and in on righties in his case.
"I've come to accept that my fastball cuts more here than it did in Japan," he said. "And that it's easier to throw breaking pitches, get better spin on the ball. In Japan, I think I had better movement on my fastball. It just felt lighter."
