Right Down the Middle

One thing that never ceases to amaze me in Japanese ball, is how often a pro league pitcher will throw a fat one right down the middle during a tight game. That happened again during last night's Tigers - Giants game. Late inning, and the reliever comes in for the Giants in a one run game, and offers a fast ball right down the middle, and there came the expected results and went the game, and pity to the outstanding performance by the Giant's starting pitcher, whose team was ahead at that point. I mean to toss a fat pitch like that right into someone's wheelhouse, it's like watching little league. It seems to happen very frequently.

I mean that it happens too, in the west on occasion, but you've got to think that your likely looking at the possibility of a fine, to make it more real to the pitcher, or at least some choice words about it instead of the pitcher, when he gets pulled, and the manager sitting in the dugout like a couple of sourpusses. What's the problem, is it a control issue, or a concentration thing? Don't they teach these guys to make the opposing team work to get their runs? I could have hit that pitch out of the park!