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Paul’s Note: The following article was posted on 8/16. For the original article in Traditional Chinese, click HERE.

In my last post I talked about Wang’s practice on the 15th. I only briefly mentioned that Guidry said the session was very successful. This post will get into a little bit more detail about the practice, especially the difference of Wang before and after.

• After his previous 2 starts where he gave up 13 earned runs in 8.2 innings, pitching coach Ron Guidry spent some time and personally held a 60-pitch workout session with Chien-Ming Wang, and it may be a turning point for his recent slump.Obviously 1 session cannot fix all the problems, but Guidry clearly pointed out Wang’s biggest problem at the moment is that he is too hard on himself. So the point of the practice was not only to work out a couple kinks in his mechanics, but also to restore his confidence. Convince himself that “his pitches are still effective.”The Chien-Ming Wang we saw before practice on that morning was not the usual “poker face, calmly facing batters” player.He arrived at around 9, much earlier than the reporting time of 11:30. He sat in front of his locker, shaking his head “I am getting worse and worse lately, don’t really know what’s wrong; the bullpen practice later, I bet I am working on my control, because I have been all over the plate.”

  During his last game against the Orioles, after giving up 3 runs in the first inning, he seemed to settle down after that, without doing anymore significant damage. But Wang admitted that “honestly, I still wasn’t as confident later on, basically I haven’t been feeling right lately.”

  Exactly the “too much on his mind, lack of confidence” Wang his coaches talked about previously.

  This is when Guidry steps in and do his job as a pitching coach. At the beginning of the session, after a couple pitches, Guidry would interrupt Wang, give him some tips, and demonstrate a couple things himself. Not only so, it was very clear that Guidry cared about his “student” a whole lot, giving Wang water, cleaning off the mount, and continuously providing more advices.

  More importantly, the result. As far as his form, Guidry asked him to raise his hand and balance himself as he steps forward, Wang paid attention to all of them; when he made the pitches, he was able to keep the balls low successfully as well. Guidry said that “of the 60 pitches, probably only 2 of them were a little bit high. It was very very successful and I am happy for him.”

  Wang himself said that “I feel much better, smoother. I was able to keep the balls low, and deliver to the locations I want.” He was so focused, didn’t even realized that he already threw 60 pitches.

  Gator further explained that “this is the key that I want Wang to understand. In his previous 10 starts, how many times were he seriously blown up? Pretty much only the one time in Toronto. And because he has never really lost like that, so he felt as “he was having problems,” but other than his control, he really doesn’t have any other major issues; I just want him to focus on pitching, don’t worry about getting hit. So what if he gave up a hit, this is baseball, hitters are suppose to hit, so there is no need to worry about things like that.”

  If Wang can step out of his slump, I believe it would have a lot to do with Guidry’s continuous guidance.

• Some updates.It was too bad that the Yankees lost on the 15th, players were not in a good mood after the game, especially Mariano Rivera, after blew 2 games in a row, he still had to talk to the media, but he patiently answered all the questions.I wanted to talk to Ron Guidry about Wang, but I knew the American media wanted to know more about Phil Hughes and Mo, since they were the focus of the day. So I waited for them to ask their questions first; after they were done, Gator seemed to be exhausted, so I carefully approached him and asked “hey coach, you have a minute? Would it be possible to talk about Wang’s session yesterday?”Gator was nice enough to share some thoughts. He explained to me very throughly, even some of the American media on the side came and listened.

  What I am trying to say is that, while I don’t want to jump to the conclusion to call Guidry a great coach, since not all great players turn out to be great coaches; yet, I have seen enough of their interactions to know that he truly care about Wang. Some media exaggerated and describe them like a “father and son,” but they seriously have great interactions.

  We all have the experience of leaving hometown to a different city/state for school or work, it usually start off very difficult. For Chien-Ming Wang who is in a totally different country, not having the ability to fluently express himself, plus he is already a quiet guy to begin with, so he is indeed very very fortunate to have someone like Guidry to help him along the way.

J-Train writes for the Word Journal, one of the bigger Mandarin news paper in North America, in NYC. He spends most of his time covering Asian athletes, with focus on Chien-Ming Wang and the New York Yankees. He recently became the first Taiwanese baseball writer to join the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA). For more of his articles, you may go to The J-Train Blog (it’s in Traditional Chinese), or click HERE for my translated ones. For those English speaking fans, HAKANIN.com will continue to provide the translated version of his articles, so stay tuned!

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Filed under: Chien-Ming Wang, Joseph Liao, MLB, New York Yankees, Sports, Taiwan, The J-Train Blog