[新聞] Dodgers: Tsao a healthy choice
※ [本文轉錄自 MLB 看板]
作者: xiemark (aisinjuro) 看板: MLB
標題: [新聞] Dodgers: Tsao a healthy choice
時間: Fri May 4 16:59:31 2007
Dodgers: Tsao a healthy choice
BY TONY JACKSON, Staff Writer
Inside SOCAL
Article Last Updated:05/03/2007 10:41:02 PM PDT
Generally speaking, the first day of February isn't a time when baseball
headlines are created. By then, the proverbial hot stove has burned down
to a few smoldering ashes, with most clubs having long since set their
spring-training rosters, and the sports pages are dominated by advance
Super Bowl coverage.
It was against that rather stealth backdrop that the Dodgers signed a
right-handed reliever named Chin-hui Tsao.
At the time, the move was such an afterthought that the club didn't
formally announce it, choosing instead to notify a handful of local beat
reporters by phone on the correct assumption no one else would care.
The club had an open 40-man roster spot, and Tsao, whose stuff had once
been so electric that Colorado manager Clint Hurdle had anointed him the
team's closer just two years earlier, had recently been non-tendered by
the Rockies after missing almost all of the previous two seasons
following shoulder surgery.
Long story short, Tsao needed a job.
And the Dodgers needed, well, nothing, really.
"I liked him when he was in Colorado," Dodgers general manager Ned
Colletti said. "As we looked through the list of players who were still
available, I knew his arm was live. I thought if he was healthy at his
age, we certainly would take a chance on a guy who was 25 years old. I
had (player development director) DeJon Watson go after him, and they
struck a deal. I told DeJon to get this guy to camp, and if we had to
give him a major-league contract, so be it."
The Dodgers did give Tsao a one-year major-league deal, but only in the
most technical sense. In every other sense, it effectively was a
minor-league contract that happened to include a 40-man roster spot, one
that would pay Tsao $425,000 if he was both healthy enough and good
enough to make the big club, and $125,000 if he was either or neither.
So far, since his April 18 recall from Triple-A Las Vegas, Tsao has been
healthy enough to make nine appearances for the Dodgers - and he has
been good enough to allow noruns and one hit, a double by Pittsburgh's
Jack Wilson on April 21, over 10 2/3 innings.
"Sure, it's a surprise," Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt said.
"This a guy who hadn't pitched competitively in two years. The main
thing is that he has been very aggressive, pounding the zone early (in
counts)."
Honeycutt pointed to Tsao's two appearances in last weekend's three-game
series at San Diego as examples of that aggressiveness.
On Saturday night, Tsao relieved Brett Tomko with runners on the corners
and one out in the eighth and threw one pitch, getting two outs on the
same rundown after Rob Bowen bounced back to the mound. After he got two
first-pitch outs and one strikeout in a perfect eighth, Tsao hadretired
four batters and recorded five outs on a total of six pitches.
In Sunday's 17-inning marathon, Tsao pitched the 10th and 11th. That
day, he retired six consecutive batters on a grand total of 15 pitches,
all with zero margin for error and at a point when one mistake would
have been catastrophic.
"They're not going to give you the ball as a closer unless you have good
stuff," Honeycutt said. "But our main concern in spring training was
making sure he was healthy. We didn't get a ton of chances to work him
on back-to-back days and see how he responded, but we liked what we saw.
"He had a tendency in spring training to kind of toy with the first
batter he faced, but I think he was feeling for his slider. He knew it
was his key pitch and that he would be throwing a lot of those. But once
he got that going, he showed great command."
When the Rockies first called up Tsao in 2003, he became the first
Taiwanese pitcher to reach the majors.
As such, he took on something akin to rock-star status in his homeland.
But his shoulder problems began to surface early the next season, and
even though he got through 2004 well enough to enter the next year as
the Rockies' closer, he wound up having arthroscopic shoulder surgery
May25, 2005.
Tsao's rehabilitation wound up taking longer than anyone thought it
would, and there were whispers coming from the Rockies' camp that it was
taking far longer than it should. For whatever reason, the club declined
to retain him.
With free agency now thrust upon him, Tsao was left twisting for much of
the winter, with only a minor-league offer from Kansas City.
Tsao was close to signing that deal when the Dodgers suddenly stepped
in, offering a roster spot.
Less than three months later, on April 18, Tsao returned to the majors.
Fittingly, he did so against the Rockies, a 1 1/3-inning stint in which
gave up no runs and no hits, and sent a clear message - to the old team
that gave up on him, the new team that took a chance on him and his
adoring fans back in Taiwan - that he still was a viable big-league
pitcher.
tony.jackson@dailynews.com
(818) 713-3675
http://www.dailynews.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?articleId=5814382&siteId=200
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