Eri Yoshida, 18, is the first woman to play professional baseball in Japan, and she’d like to have that distinction in America as well. Yoshida pitched for an independent league in Arizona this winter and she didn’t do half bad. The spritely pitcher led her team to four shut out innings against Team Canada on February 12th, but finished league play with a 6.16 ERA in 19 innings. She walked six and struck out four, which isn’t good enough if she wants to go pro. It’s not even close to the worst in her league though, so experts think she’s got potential.
Those experts include Yoshida’s idol, Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield. Yoshida got the chance to show her favorite player her stuff at Red Sox spring training this week and get some tips. She was beyond excited about the opportunity, since she taught herself to throw a knuckleball after watching videos of Wakefield.
Wakefield said, “I’m impressed. She spun a couple, but for the most part, it was very good. She was able to take the spin out of a lot of them and they had quite a lot of movement on them.” By quite a lot, he means in the 50 MPH range, for a Knuckle ball. Yoshida’s fast balls top out around 60 MPH. After watching Yoshida pitch for a while, Wakefield gave her some advice: “Just mechanics stuff. Some of my checkpoints that I use to try to throw with a stiff wrist and things. I just saw a couple of things that she was doing wrong, and she was able to correct it.”
Wakefield also signed a baseball for Yoshida and wished her luck, leaving Yoshida walking on air. “I never thought I could ever feel this happy,” the teenager professed. “I think everything he taught me is going to give me a chance to really work on what I need to work on. But also, I got a chance to meet him, and it really gave me some courage and confidence I need to really get back to training hard.”
