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“It’s the same as when he was on the top squad,” says Second Squad Manager Yano
The road to recovery is a bumpy one, as Hanshin’s Wilin Rosario is discovering. The first baseman, recently demoted to the second squad team, batted fourth against Hiroshima’s Western League squad (June 12, at Yuu Stadium), finishing the day without a hit in four at-bats. Once again, breaking pitches were his downfall.
In his first at-bat, leading off the top of the second inning, Rosario stuck out looking at an outside fastball from Hiroshima’s ace Nomura (who is himself tuning up on the Carp’s second squad). In the fourth, he grounded out to short on an outside-corner slider; and in the sixth, with two outs and the bases loaded, Nomura jammed him on an inside fastball. Perhaps he was trying to win the game with one swing of the bat. Instead, he grounded to third to snuff out the rally. In the eighth, with one out and runners on first and second, an outside breaking ball from Kyohei Nakamura saw Rosario grounding to short for an inning-ending double play. The bright smile that had been on his face during practice was completely gone by the end of the game.
“When there’s nobody on base, it looks like he’s trying to adjust and see the ball better,” said second squad manager Yano. “But put a runner in scoring position, and the urge to swing away takes over. It’s the same as when he was on the top squad.” Hitting coach Hamanaka analyzed the situation thus: “[Nomura] had [Rosario] swinging at both inside and outside pitches, and when you get that kind of reaction from a batter, you know you’re in control.”
In other words, Rosario has a long way to go before he can handle the elite pitching techniques that are the norm on the top squad. Despite an RBI in his return game — on the 10th, against Orix — it won’t be easy for Rosario to overcome the problems that led to his demotion. The uphill battle continues.
Translated by Jacob Dunlap