Thema drucken
02.08.2019 15:33
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PHOENIX -- Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson moved Miguel Montero down to eighth in the lineup, hoping it would give him a spark, playing a hunch that he might come up in a big situation. He was right on both counts. Hitting before the pitcher for the first time in two years, Montero hit a tiebreaking homer off the right foul pole in the eighth inning, helping the Diamondbacks beat the Philadelphia Phillies 3-2 Friday night for their fifth straight victory. "One of the things when youre hitting eighth is that you have to tell yourself you might come up in a situation where you can do something good, which he did," Gibson said. "It was huge for us." The Diamondbacks struggled most of the night against Phillies starter Tyler Cloyd, managing two hits off him in 6 2-3 innings. They came through when he went out, though, scoring on a run in the seventh when Martin Prado broke a 29 at-bat hitless streak with runners in scoring position, then taking the lead when Montero hit the first pitch thrown by Mike Adams (1-3) in the eighth that curled toward the foul pole in right and just caught it. Tony Sipp (2-1) got two outs in the eighth inning and David Hernandez worked out of a jam in the ninth for his first save, sending Arizona to its sixth win in seven games. "I knew the ball was gone, but you have so much bad luck that I was running around and was like, wow, I cant believe that ball is going to go foul," Montero said. "I was fortunate enough to hit the pole. It feels great to help the team because Ive been disappointed in myself not being able to the ball the way I wanted." The Phillies jumped on Kennedy early, starting with Rollins 44th career leadoff homer that tied him with Brady Anderson for fourth all-time. They scored another run in the first inning, but struggled the rest of the way against Kennedy and couldnt score against Hernandez with runners on second and third with one out in the ninth. Laynce Nix made the second out in the ninth with a soft infield pop-up and Hernandez ended the game by getting Rollins to ground out to first. "We broke through, but we made some mistakes," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "At the same time, we got four hits in that (first) inning but we didnt capitalize on better opportunity then we didnt add on during the game." Kennedy has laboured since beating St. Louis on Opening Day, allowing four or more runs three times during a six-game winless streak. The right-hander lost to San Diego after allowing four runs in seven innings in his last outing and got off to a rough start against the Phillies. Rollins hit the first pitch of the game out to right for his 44th career leadoff homer, matching Brady Anderson for fourth all-time. Domonic Brown followed a walk and another hit with a run-scoring single that put the Phillies up 2-0. Kennedy found a rhythm after that, allowing a single in the second inning and no other hits until Ben Revere led off the seventh with a single. He was lifted for a pinch hitter in the bottom half after allowing two runs on six hits with four strikeouts. "It was his best outing of the season, especially those last two innings," Gibson said. Cloyd was just as good. The right-hander pitched six games for the Phillies in 2012, going 2-2, and opened this season in the minors. He was called up to start against the Diamondbacks after Roy Halladay went out with a shoulder injury. Making his season debut in one of baseballs most hitter-friendly parks didnt seem to bother the 25-year-old. In the first inning, Eric Chavez lined a double to the right field corner off him and Paul Goldschmidt just beat John Mayberrys throw after running through -- almost literally -- third base coach Matt Williams stop sign. Cloyd had the Diamondbacks guessing after that, working around a pair of walks in the fourth inning with a double play and allowing no hits until Cody Ross hit a one-out flare single to left in the seventh. He was lifted after that, but didnt figure into the decision because Ross tagged up on Jason Kubels long flyball to get into scoring position and scored on Prados run-scoring single off Antonio Bastardo. Cloyd allowed two hits and struck out four, but is headed back to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Right-hander Justin De Fratus will be called up to take his spot on the roster. "They told me no matter what happened tonight, they were going to end up sending me down," Cloyd said. "I have to go down there and keep going, keep myself in a position to come back up and help them out again." Notes: Rollins leadoff homer gave the Phillies 14 straight solo shots. ... Phillies RHP Roy Halladay, whos out with a shoulder injury, thanked Philadelphias fans for their support before Fridays game and apologized to the ones who were angry that he pitched while hurt. "I just want the fans to know Im thinking about them," he said. "I dont take that for granted. I dont take playing for Philadelphia for granted." ... Arizona right-hander Trevor Cahill, who will start against the Phillies on Saturday, has allowed four runs in 20 innings (1.80) his last three starts. ... Left-hander Cliff Lee will start for the Phillies after allowing two runs in eight innings against the Giants his last start. Mahmoud Dahoud Dortmund Jersey . By having more great seasons. Manning was the only unanimous choice for the 2013 Associated Press NFL All-Pro team Friday. Christian Pulisic Jersey . -- Ryan Blaney provided more evidence that Penske Racings No. http://www.footballdortmundpro.com/Kids-Shinji-Kagawa-Jersey/ .C. -- Todd Fiddler scored a hat trick, including the overtime goal, as the Prince George Cougars survived an 8-7 win against the Kamloops Blazers in Western Hockey League play Sunday. Marcel Schmelzer Jersey . DAmigo scored twice in regulation and added the shootout winner as the Toronto Marlies edged the San Antonio Rampage 5-4 in American Hockey League action. Julian Weigl Dortmund Jersey . A forerunning sled crashed into the worker Thursday at the Sanki Sliding Center. The unidentified worker broke both legs and was airlifted to a nearby hospital. THE PLAYERS gathered in the back of the Miami Marlins team plane, and somebody started pouring champagne.Martin Prado, the veteran third baseman, led the toast. He turned to Ichiro Suzuki and said: Im proud of you. Were all proud of you.That afternoon, June 15, in the ninth inning against the San Diego Padres, Ichiro had lined a double into the right-field corner for his 4,257th professional hit. Pete Rose, the major leagues all-time hits leader, finished his career with 4,256. Ichiro got his first 1,278 hits in Japan, so, in the MLB record books, Roses record survives. Still, Ichiros hit meant something: a milepost in one of baseballs great careers, a connection across countries and cultures and leagues, a line drive that carried an ocean.Back in Japan, where it was already morning the next day, newspapers started printing special editions for rush hour. In San Diego, the fans gave him a standing ovation. Ichiro tipped his helmet to the crowd, revealing a brush cut of gray hair.He is 42 now, the second-oldest player in the majors (behind Bartolo Colon), and this is his 16th year playing in the United States. In his first year in the majors, he was both rookie of the year and MVP. He holds the single-season record for hits with 262. He owns 10 Gold Gloves as an outfielder. And sometime in the next couple of weeks, he will reach a milestone beyond dispute: 3,000 major league hits, a mark only 29 players before him have reached. Going into Tuesdays game against the Phillies, he is at 2,994, six hits away. He is a dead-certain Hall of Famer, which Pete Rose, right now, is not.Were all proud of you, Prado said. And everybodys excited, just to watch you do your thing.There was a pause, the moment when the person being honored might normally say a few words. Ichiro had given a rare news conference after the game, speaking through his interpreter, Allen Turner. Hed said the kinds of things you expect: It was just a relief that I was able to get a clean hit. But now, in front of his teammates, he struggled.It meant so much to him that they cared. If you do something great and youre the only one who enjoys it, whats the point? He started to tell them that. But they all speak English or Spanish, and even though Ichiro knows both languages, he has always worried about saying something wrong, missing some little shade of meaning. And even though he has taught some of his teammates a little Japanese, none would understand enough. He hates to be misunderstood. He wants to make sure what other people hear is exactly what he means. Turner was there with him on the plane. But that, too, would be one step removed.He just smiled, and waved, and raised his glass.The language he has always known best is baseball. His father relentlessly drilled him in the game. He grew to become the Jordan of Japan. He chose to come to America and prove himself all over again. Now, years past the time when most players retire, he has found a second wind. Through Monday, playing part time as the Marlins fourth outfielder, he was hitting .345.Fans love Ichiro wherever they love baseball. (Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez, who defected from Cuba as a teenager, says Ichiro has a huge following there.) He clearly enjoys being part of a team. But baseball, more than any other team sport, forces a player to face its challenges alone. When you get up to the plate ... nobodys there to help you, Ichiro says. Youve got to do this on your own.The separation suits him. Ichiro has never been normal: first separated by his talent, then by language, always by the legendary habits and quirks he has built into his daily routine. When he played in Seattle, Ken Griffey Jr. started tickling him before every game. Ichiro hates to be tickled. But then Griffey stopped and Ichiro went into a slump. So he told Griffey to start tickling him again, even though it meant that every game he ran onto the field soaked in sweat. Ichiro lives at the intersection of zen, superstition and obsession.It is so hard in this world to be understood -- harder than a slider at the knees. In some ways, even after 16 years in the majors and 25 as a pro, Ichiro is still the guy in the back of the plane, one step removed from it all. He is thoughtful when he chooses to speak. But the best way to hear him is to watch him work.PHASE 1: The locker roomIchiro faces his locker before a June home game against the Rockies. It is four hours before the first pitch. There is so much to do to get ready.He runs the soles of his feet over nubby massage balls. He gets on the floor and rolls a vibrating foam roller under his hamstrings and hips. He takes a brass-colored wire brush and scrubs the dirt from his cleats. He puts the cleats on with a shoehorn. He drapes his jersey across his lap, gets out a tiny pair of scissors and clips off stray threads. When he has finished, he takes a lint roller and cleans the carpet in front of his locker.He grabs a bat and goes to the indoor batting cage. He stores his bats in a special case that keeps them dry. He does not like them to sweat.On the field, he stretches with the rest of the team, but two steps off to the side. Everybody but Ichiro does the same few moves. They work with stretch bands a bit. Then they go off to hit or shag flies. Ichiro keeps stretching. He rolls backward until he is balancing on the back of his neck. He spreads his legs beneath him on the ground, angled outward at the knees, like a splayed chicken. No joint goes unbent. He is a yogi in a ball cap.After 20 minutes, he pops up and heads for the outfield, picking up his custom-made red glove.His father, Nobuyuki Suzuki, bought Ichiro a red glove when he was 3.According to Robert Whitings book The Meaning of Ichiro, Ichiro and his father played catch every day, and Nobuyuki made his son clean and oil the glove after each session. By the time Ichiro was 7, he was hitting 200 pitches from his father every afternoon, and 250 to 300 more from a pitching machine every night. In high school, his team in Nagoya practiced daily from 3:30 to 8 p.m. and took more batting practice at 9. The grind weeded out dozens of players. But Ichiro had done it all before, for his father. In his three years of high school ball, he hit .502.The Orix Blue Wave drafted him out of high school. In his third year of pro ball, he set the Japanese record for hits in a season -- 210 in 130 games. Soon he became not just Japans best player but its biggest celebrity. He played with a swagger rarely seen in Japanese ball -- he caught fly balls behind his back in practice, blasted hip-hop before games. But underneath the flair was a classic Japanese story: a young warrior suffers for his craft, then masters it.When a hero goes on a journey, he becomes a symbol of his home. Ichiro signed with the Mariners before the 2001 season, after nine years with Orix, and became the first position player from Japan to enter the majors. He brought more than his bags to Seattle.He carried the weight of Japanese baseball on his shoulders, says Rich Waltz, who worked on the broadcast team in Seattle and is now the TV play-by-play announcer for the Marlins. If he came over as the best player in Japan, and walks into Major League Baseball -- there had not been a guy like him to come over -- if he failed, if he was an average player, then the whole league over there wouldve been downgraded in the minds of fans, in the minds of players, in the minds of executives.That first year, as a 27-year-old rookie, he led the majors in batting average, hits and stolen bases. The Mariners won an American League record 116 games. Seattle, and America, fell in love.As a new player in the States, he gravitated toward another pioneer. He loved going to Kansas City to talk with Buck ONeil, the former Negro Leagues player who became the first black coach in the majors. ONeil would hang around the batting cage before games. Ichiro enjoyed his style -- ONeil always dressed beautifully -- and soaked up his stories. ONeil had also helped establish the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and Ichiro stopped in for a tour. When ONeil died in 2006, Ichiro sent a giant wreath to the memorial service.A year later, on a road trip to Kansas City, he asked to meet some of the museums staff. Museum president Bob Kendrick showed Ichiro a rare program from a barnstorming tour of Japan that a Negro League team called the Philadelphia Royal Giants made in 1927. Ichiro held the fragile paper in his hands, read from the Japanese on the cover. Then he got around to why he had come. He pulled out his checkbook. Kendrick wont say how much Ichiro donated to the museum, but he says it was the biggest donation from any active player.Kendrick sees a kinship between Ichiro and the black players who integrated the major leagues. Its not apples to apples. No one fought to keep Ichiro out of the majors. But Kendrick believes he faced similar hurdles.So many people were skeptical that his skill set would transfer from Japan. People thought he wasnt as good, Kendrick says. I always understood the parallels between the guys coming out of the Negro Leagues and what Ichiro had to deal with. They were always trying to erase that doubt.Now, doubts erased, Ichiro jogs to the outfield with his throwing partner, Marlins centerfielder Marcell Ozuna. Ozuna is 25 years old, from the Dominican Republic. When Ichiro came to the Marlins last year, he taught Ozuna a new Japanese word every day. Now they start playing catch a few feet apart, Ozuna standing on the left-field line. With every throw Ichiro backs up a few steps. After a few minutes he is way out in right-center, ripping perfect throws to Ozuna, who has not moved from his spot. Then Ichiro starts coming back in, a few steps with every throw, until he and Ozuna are just an arms length apart. About as far as a 3-year-old could throw it.They pull face-to-face and bro-hug -- the same thing they do every time they throw. Then Ichiro goes off to hit.PHASE 2: Batting practiceThe legends his teammates have told all these years are true. In batting practice, Ichiro is the Babe. He parks pitch after pitch into the right-field stands. A few land in the upper deck. The power swing he uses in BP is a left-handed glide that looks like a scale model of Griffeys. Griffey hit 630 home runs in his major league career. Ichiro has 113.This has frustrated some fans, and even teammates, over the years. If Ichiro sacrificed some of his singles to swing for the fences, the thinking goes, hed produce more runs. Its a fair question, especially now that advanced stats show the value of low-average hitters with power. But Ichiro has never seen himself that way. He told Rich Waltz once that he gets nervous every time he comes to bat with runners in scoring position. He is used to being the runner instead of the one who drives them in. He doesnt trust his power. Look at my arms, he told Waltz. They are toothpicks.Ichiro has always been one of the smallest players in the majors. Its one of the reasons people doubted him. When he came to Seattle, he was listed at 5-9, 156. Now the Marlins list him at 5-11 and 174. By comparison, Marlins right fielder Giancarlo Stanton is 6-6, 246 and looks like the cover of a romance novel. Ichiro looks pieced together from two different bodies. From the waist up, hes an MMA middleweight, lean and cut. From the waist down hes an NFL running back, thick-legged and powerful.But his philosophy of hitting has more to do with his mind. When Ichiro was young, Nobuyuki trained him to hit left-handed -- even though his natural swing was right-handed -- because left-handed hitters are closer to first. He also taught Ichiro to start running almost as he swung the bat. Ichiro was built, through years of practice, to beat out infield hits. When he first made it to the big leagues in Japan, his manager told him to change the swing he and his father had perfected. Ichiro chose to go back to the minors instead of switch. Orix eventually switched managers. The new manager told Ichiro to hit however he wanted. Swinging for singles is the essence of Ichiros art.I ask him one day in the locker room: What does it feel like when you connect? He leans back in his chair and thinks before answering.You want to feel like theres a nerve that goes through the bat with your body and connects with the bat, hhe says.dddddddddddd I like the ball to almost stick to my bat. The longer it stays on the bat, thats what I like.He looks for pure contact, says Raul Ibanez, a friend and teammate of Ichiros with the Mariners and Yankees, and now an adviser with the Los Angeles Dodgers and an ESPN analyst. He looks to hit the ball as purely and fluidly and perfectly as he can.Its fun to wonder whether what Ichiro has done is more valuable. Whats clear is that it is more rare. Over the past five seasons, players have hit 40 or more home runs 20 times. Players have reached 200 hits just 11 times. Ichiro, from 2001 through 2010, got more than 200 hits every single year.We didnt get him to hit 28 home runs, Lou Piniella, his first manager in Seattle, said on a recent conference call. We got him to play great outfield, run the bases well and become a good major league hitter. He became a great major league hitter.Piniella was not sure at first. When Ichiro arrived for his first spring training, he spent the first few days slapping every pitch to the opposite field -- dribblers to third, fouls into the stands. He had always started training camp this way. It was how he got a feel for the outer edge of the strike zone. But Piniella didnt know that. The Mariners had sunk $27 million into Ichiro -- a $13 million fee to Orix, and $14 million for his three-year contract -- and the guy couldnt get the ball out of the infield? Early in a spring game, Piniella called him over. Pull the ball, son, he said. Being Lou Piniella, he might have used stronger words.Ichiro listened and nodded. The next time he came up, he jacked a home run into the right-field bullpen. Piniella met him in the dugout to shake his hand. Ichiro looked at him and said: Happy now?Now, on his last swing in BP, he hits a fly to right. Then he does what he always does at the end of his session: He sprints to first, then to second, as if stretching a single into a double. As the next batter swings, no matter where the ball goes, Ichiro takes third. Then on the next pitch he heads home, manufacturing an imaginary run.PHASE 3: At the plateHere is the hard fact about Ichiros current role: He is the fourth outfielder on a team with three good ones. Christian Yelich, in left, and Ozuna, in center, are both hitting better than .300. Stanton, in right, has struggled this year, but hes a three-time All-Star and just won the Home Run Derby. Their ages are 24, 25 and 26. Marlins manager Don Mattingly sums it up: If theres no injuries, theres not a lot of at-bats.Ichiro has started just 30 of the Marlins 92 games this year, shifting among all three outfield spots. Mostly he pinch hits. When hes not in the starting lineup, he spends the first inning in the dugout, in the same spot: standing on the far left end, up near the railing. He has not always stood there. It just feels right to him these days. I like to decide things like that, he says, so when things are going crazy, I can just go back to that place where I know thats my place.As soon as the inning is over, he ducks back into the clubhouse. On the road, he might stretch some more or hit in the indoor cage. At Marlins Park, he has his machines. A small Japanese company that makes gym equipment made them for him; Ichiro is its only individual customer. They look like an old-school Nautilus set. He has them spread out in four stations on a ramp that winds down between the locker room and the dugout. They are built to stretch and strengthen at the same time. Some of the guys have gotten on the machines, Waltz says. Its kicked their ass. Now Ichiro is again the only one.The other players see what he does to prepare. I will be able to tell my kids that I played with a guy that has such a routine, that never changes his routine, has always done the same thing, Prado says. People dont understand, its so hard to maintain yourself in the same rhythm, and he does. He does. Every day.Generally, around the seventh inning, he comes back to the dugout. On this particular night, the Marlins are playing the Reds before another quiet crowd in Miami. The Marlins have a bright and clean new park with a retractable roof to keep out the inescapable South Florida thunderstorms. They have that crazy fish sculpture out beyond the wall in center. They have young talent, like Fernandez and those three outfielders. This year theyre on the top side of .500 and in the race for the National League wild card. Miami does not seem to care. The Marlins are 27th in the league in attendance. In Miami, if you want stars, you can always go to South Beach.The crowd stirs in the bottom of the eighth when Ichiro steps into the on-deck circle. In the press box, the Japanese reporters sit up straighter. At one point, when Ichiro was at his peak in Seattle, more than 150 members of the Japanese media covered him. Waltz remembers that one photographer had a single job every day: to get the shot of Ichiro coming out of the dugout and onto the field. He took the shot, shipped it back home, and his day was done. Now the Japanese media corps is down to about a dozen --more lately, though, as Ichiro has crept toward 3,000. Japanese TV still shows most of his games.Of course Ichiro has an on-deck routine, too. He always squats and plants the bat out in front of him like a tripod. He always does a second squat with his legs spread wide. He always takes a few of those loping batting-practice swings, watching the pitcher, getting down his timing.When he is announced, the crowd chants his name. Some fans wear orange Ichiro Countdown T-shirts, created by a shoe salesman named Jay Marcus. They have big baseballs on the front where you are supposed to write how many hits Ichiro needs for 3,000. On this night, he needs 10.He comes up with two on and two out, the Marlins up 4-2. The pitcher is a right-hander named Michael Lorenzen. Ichiro steps into the box and does what he has done for more than 10,000 major league plate appearances. He extends his right arm toward the pitcher, holding the bat straight up in the air. Then he reaches across his body with his left hand and tugs on his right sleeve, like an archer pulling back a bow.When you get up to the plate ... nobodys there to help you.On a 3-1 count, he taps one back to the pitcher. Lorenzen jogs toward first for the easy out. But Ichiro sees him jogging and speeds into a higher gear. Lorenzen notices, almost too late. He flips the ball to the first baseman just in time.The announcers start talking about the All-Star break. Ichiro made the All-Star team his first 10 years in the league. Every year, in the American League locker room, he would crack up the team with a loud and profane speech in perfect English about beating the bleep out of the National League. But he has not made the team since 2010. This year, four other Marlins made the team and went to San Diego. Ichiro stayed in Miami. He made plans to come to the park every day of the break to work out.PHASE 4: PostgameThe Marlins close out the Reds in the ninth, and Ichiros habits kick in. If he is on the bench when the Marlins win, he hops the dugout railing to congratulate his teammates. But before the high-fives, he always steps onto the pitchers mound and toes the rubber. He looks in toward the plate, as if waiting for a catchers sign.Ichiro, who pitched in high school, begged the Mariners for years to let him pitch in a blowout. He was a star; they refused to risk his arm. When he played with the Yankees from 2012 to 2014, he begged manager Joe Girardi; Girardi also turned him down. Last year, his first with the Marlins, he worked on Dan Jennings, who managed the team for most of last season. Finally, in the last game, with Miami down four to the Phillies, Jennings let Ichiro pitch the eighth. He gave up a run on two doubles. His fastball topped out at 88.So now, Ichiro has pitched in the majors. He has been a star on two continents. He has made somewhere north of $160 million in major league salary alone, not including what he made in Japan, or endorsements. (Forbes estimated in 2011 that he makes $7 |
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