Uehara on His Pitchig vs Pirates

It's rare that Japanese baseball players talk about their performance on their blog or Twitter. Usually most of them write about daily life.

Koji Uehara wrote about his pitching and Pirates hitters' approach on Tuesday's game on his blog.

In beginning of his blog, Uehara said that it was lucky that he didn't gave up a home run.

"If you try to get a strike easily on a first pitch against a clean-up hitter, the result would be like this."  - Koji Uehara

vs. Neil Walker
"First batter, a double to right on fastball. I tried too much to get a first strike."

vs. Russell Martin
"Second batter, strikeout on a splitter. I knew he waited (the splitter), but I think it drop well to the inside."

vs. Starling Marte
"Third batter, strikeout on fastball. Apparently, he was waiting for split based on his swing. He had late swings on not-so-fast fastballs."

I thought Marte took late swings because of Uehara's deception. Uehara has a different perspective.

vs. Gaby Sanchez
"Fourth hitter, strikeout looking on splitter. The movement of the final pitch was like a slider. It was not intentional, but I wish I could throw baseball like that (intentionally)."

Uehara said that he is not at his best.

It is very interesting to see that when a opponent pitcher talks about his pitching approach.