Yanks' Wang Proving That Talking Is Overrated

[iceman0603 (iii)]

轉自 The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/sports/baseball/04yankees.html

文中有很多隊友及教練對王的評價，大家看看吧

Chien-Ming Wang and John Flaherty sat together at a table in the clubhouse
lounge after Sunday's game, talking the international language of baseball.

Wang had fired seven shutout innings against the Detroit Tigers, leading the
Yankees to a 1-0 victory at Comerica Park. Flaherty had caught the game and was
still excited, gesturing with his hands, mimicking the movement of pitches and
reaction of hitters.

Wang, the first Taiwanese player in American League history, stared intently at
Flaherty and repeated some of the hand motions. Wang speaks some English, but
he is a better listener, off the field and on.

His final line on Sunday was terrific: five hits, no runs, one walk, two
strikeouts. But Wang also hit three batters, and he retired the side only once,
in his final inning. It was a struggle, Flaherty thought, but Wang made
adjustments much quicker than most rookies do.

Flaherty spent five years with Tampa Bay, catching for many young pitchers.
If a rookie flies open with his front shoulder early in a game, he typically
does not last long. Wang is different.

"With Chien, it doesn't seem like you have to really work too hard to get him
back on track," Flaherty said. "You make a simple suggestion - keep the ball
down, or whatever - and he seems to pick up on it right away."

In the first inning, Wang gave up a leadoff single and hit the next batter.
Flaherty went to the mound and encouraged Wang to get a ground ball. He did not
do that, but three fly outs ended the inning.

The Yankees had trouble with Detroit's starter, Nate Robertson, who pitched a
complete game. But they scored in the fourth inning, when Robinson Cano led off
with a double to left-center and scored on a single by Gary Sheffield.

It was an impressive display by Cano - left-handers cannot be taught to hit
high pitches so far to the opposite field, Manager Joe Torre said - and it
somehow accentuated Wang's performance. The Yankees' unlikely youth movement
scored a victory.

"The story of our year in a nutshell has been Wang and Cano," Alex Rodriguez
said. "Boy, what a shot in the arm those guys have been. They've played like
All-Stars. They've brought a fountain of youth to our ballclub that was very
much needed."

Wang (5-3) kept finding jams and hanging in. With two outs and two on in the
second, he got a groundout from Brandon Inge to survive. A double play helped
him in the third.

Wang shook off a two-out triple in the fifth. He started an inning-ending
double play in the sixth. Knowing that a misstep could knock his teetering team
back to .500, Wang never wavered.

"It's really unusual to have anybody that young be that consistent with his
starts," Torre said. "And the fact that he's gotten into a lot of trouble,
that's very impressive for me. He'll make a pitch, he'll field his position,
he'll do a lot of things.

"One thing that punctuates it is how he pitches with men on base, especially in
a low-scoring game like today. There was obviously no breathing room."

Wang's pitching helped as much as his poise. He threw 98 pitches, and Flaherty
estimated that only 10 were off-speed. Wang might rush his fastball up on a
hitter, for variety, but usually he throws it down and away, the sinking action
conducive to ground balls.

"If he's got his good two-seamer, it's almost like you know what's coming, but
you can't put it in play hard," Flaherty said. "It's almost like Mariano."

That was heady praise for Wang, especially considering that Mariano Rivera,
with his devastating cutter, is pitching as well as ever. Rivera converted his
18th consecutive save opportunity, retiring three hitters in a row after Ivan
Rodriguez's leadoff double in the ninth. Craig Monroe broke his bat on the
game-ending ground out.

The victory was the Yankees' first this season while scoring three runs or
fewer. They had never gone so long at the start of a season without such a
victory, and every other team in the majors had at least two. The Yankees had
been 0-27 until Sunday.

"It's significant, because our game is keeping the score low and pitching well
," Torre said. In that case, it is saying something that Wang, a replacement
for the injured Jaret Wright, has been the Yankees' most consistent starter.
In 8 of his 11 starts, he has worked at least six innings and allowed no more
than three earned runs.

"You could make an argument that when he goes to the mound, we feel like we
have our best chance to win," Flaherty said. "We've gotten a lot more out of
that guy than anybody would have thought."


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