- 1 hour ago
Seth and Sean lay out the reasons given for Tatsuya Imai's struggles so far, and assess if each one is an excuse or a legit explanation.
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00:00The mood right now is good for the Astros.
00:02They've won two in a row, go for the sweep tonight.
00:05Ryan Weiss on the mound tonight, trying to get the sweep,
00:08a revenge sweep against the team that swept the Astros last week
00:12in the Colorado Rockies.
00:13So Spencer Ergetti was great last night.
00:16That was good to see.
00:16Jordan hit another home run.
00:18If the Astros just had middle-of-the-road pitching,
00:21Jordan would be maybe the leading MVP candidate in the American League right now.
00:25You know, they had a better record than 8-11 right now.
00:27Although everybody's super bunched up.
00:30Nobody's running away with this thing yet.
00:32They'll try to – right now what we've been able to do is at the very least
00:37turn Jordan Alvarez into peak Mike Trout,
00:39where he's having an MVP caliber performance,
00:42but on a team that's going nowhere.
00:44That's going nowhere.
00:44As of right now.
00:45As of right now, yeah, yeah.
00:47Jordan's had a fantastic season.
00:50Tatsuya Imai has not, as we've outlined over the last day or two.
00:54He went on the injured list earlier this week with right arm fatigue.
00:58I am very dubious that this is an actual injury that prevents him from throwing the ball
01:03how he normally throws it.
01:05I think it's something – I think this is something the team is doing for him to clear his head.
01:10He seems like somebody, Seth, who's having a major, major issue adjusting to everything
01:15about this new job of his.
01:17Other than getting good tickets to games, he's been good at that.
01:20He was at the Rockets game front row and front row in the owner's box, I think,
01:24at the Texans game when they first signed him back in November or December, whatever it was.
01:29So that was kind of fun.
01:30But other than that, it's been not great for Tatsuya Imai.
01:33Now Chandler Rome on the Foul Territory podcast kind of shared some news yesterday with us.
01:40Yeah.
01:40About the interpreters for Tatsuya Imai.
01:44He's on his third one.
01:45This is Chandler Rome on how the latest one has been kind of operating and interpreting
01:51what Tatsuya Imai has been saying, including what might be excuses or reasons for why he's pitched so poorly.
01:58The way that this interpreter spoke, he didn't translate a lot of the answers as Imai.
02:05He translated it as like a summation of what he said using the pronouns he and him as opposed to
02:11I.
02:12Yeah, which is just weird because I did wonder about that when I first read Chandler's article on it.
02:18Like, okay, boy, usually when they give something from the interpreter, it's like a trans...
02:24You're led to believe it's some kind of transcription, basically, of what the guy said in his own language.
02:30I feel like it's almost a dereliction of duty to go third person instead of first person on it, you
02:35know?
02:35Yeah.
02:36It's the first time I can ever remember this being a situation.
02:39Yes.
02:40But it does lead you to believe, and Chandler lays this out, when the interpreter gave out a bunch of
02:46reasons,
02:47and then Chandler explains, because he's talking to foul territory here,
02:51he explains some of the things that I think previous interpreters had said about all of the issues that Imai's
02:55had since he's been here.
02:56The interpreter said that Imai is having trouble adjusting to American life, both on the field and off.
03:05He mentioned the travel.
03:07Imai has said that the mounds, the different mounds and different ballparks have given him problems.
03:12He mentioned that pitching in weather is not something that he had to do much in Japan.
03:17He has talked since spring training about the baseballs and the differences between the baseballs here and in NPB.
03:24I think the thing that caught a lot of people by surprise is that he mentioned that, you know,
03:29he's eating dinner at different locations and at different times than he did in Japan.
03:34The way the interpreter spoke, he said he used that as a for example.
03:39I think, you know, that's what he used that as an example to say of some stuff he's had trouble
03:44adjusting to.
03:45So, you know, I can only read between the lines here.
03:49I don't speak Japanese.
03:50I can't tell you if there was more context in the answers that Imai gave as opposed to what we
03:55were given.
03:56But reading between the lines, it sounds like a guy that's just struggling to adapt.
04:02Yeah, the vagueness and the weirdness of all of this and having three separate translators and now with the latest
04:12translator,
04:14perhaps giving a like, I don't know, I get writing an article on the spot about what Imai had said
04:20or something.
04:21I don't know what to make of all of it.
04:23And I think Chandler, like credit to Chandler for being very open about, it sounds like he's trying to be
04:30careful about reading too much into the example of eating in a different place or anything.
04:36Because he doesn't know if Imai actually said that or if that's the translator adding on to this as he
04:42delivers this report about what Imai said.
04:45How can it be this hard to find a translator?
04:48That's my question.
04:49My question is, why is this guy on his third translator since he became an Astro?
04:53Yeah.
04:54Like, is he hard to work with?
04:56Look, we know the last translator that we knew of for a Japanese player here in the United States that
05:04became at all newsworthy was Shohei's interpreter,
05:07who ended up emptying some of his bank accounts because of his gambling debts.
05:11So I don't think there's anything like that going on.
05:13I think we would know if it were anything like that.
05:15But that was my question.
05:16Like, why is he on his third interpreter?
05:19There's got to be a reason.
05:20This is all, but I guess with the Spanish translator, obviously, you've got one guy on the team who has
05:26a whole lot of experience working with players and everything.
05:28He's got like 10 guys he's got to do.
05:30Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:32Yeah, when you go to, if we think about, okay, when Yao came over from China, they paired him with
05:37that translator who was with him for a long time.
05:41And, you know, I guess maybe we need to appreciate, because it's not, there's a long history of having Spanish
05:47-speaking players.
05:48Sure.
05:49China, Japan, others, it's more episode by episode.
05:53And it's not like you're always, it's not like you've always got your standard translator on deck for you.
05:59They've got to find a good translator first and foremost.
06:01Yes.
06:02If Emai is uncomfortable with all of this, I don't like the idea of him not forming a relationship with
06:07his translator.
06:08Okay, well, the translator then, if Emai started to use the cycling through of translators as a reason that he's
06:15not pitching well, that, by my count, would be the sixth on the list that we've got so far.
06:20Okay, so, Seth, I was able to jot down five things that Tatsui Emai has used as either a reason
06:26for a specific poor performance or just, in general, his poor performance so far.
06:31You tell me, are these reasons or excuses?
06:34Let's say an excuse or an explanation.
06:37Okay, okay, fair.
06:38Because an explanation can also be used as an excuse.
06:41So, is it just an explanation or is it a, or is he just making an excuse?
06:44So, we're doing explanation or excuse.
06:46I like that, the alliteration, I like.
06:49The weather in Seattle that was in the mid-60s for his poor performance against the Mariners in that game.
06:58Explanation or excuse?
07:00Excuse.
07:00Excuse.
07:01Because it wasn't cold outside.
07:03Right.
07:04I don't know.
07:04It's like, who can't warm up in 65 degrees?
07:08Tatsui Emai, that's who.
07:09Yeah.
07:09Yeah.
07:10I don't, yeah.
07:11So, that's excuse.
07:13I'm writing these down.
07:14Excuse.
07:15All right.
07:15The baseballs, the texture of the baseballs, this is more of a general one than just one poor performance.
07:23He's been saying that since he got here.
07:25I would say, he said that, now he, okay, we shouldn't say he's been saying that, right?
07:29Because he said that early on during camp or during spring training.
07:34And he's had one really good performance since then.
07:37And I feel like he's had time to adjust to the baseball stickiness.
07:41So, at this point, that feels like an excuse if you're trying to stick up for him.
07:45Okay.
07:45And plus, we've seen multiple other, you know, Japanese pitchers come over.
07:50Yes.
07:50And adjust to the slipperiness of our baseballs.
07:53Okay, now, the mound, I actually just wrote down the mound.
07:56Yeah.
07:56But there's really two elements to the mound here.
07:58One is a general one where the mound is just different here than it is in Japan.
08:04I'm going to go explanation on that one, on the angle of the mound.
08:10Yeah.
08:10The angle of the mound.
08:11Now, the other mound one was specific to Seattle where he said the mound was too hard.
08:16It was too hard, right?
08:17That's an excuse.
08:18That's an excuse.
08:18Well, hmm.
08:20Because other major league pitchers will talk about this.
08:23Adjusting to the different mounds in different ballparks.
08:26But it's not enough to excuse just being pulled from the game after a third of an inning.
08:31Yeah.
08:32That's like, okay, yeah, that's an excuse.
08:35Yeah, the angle of the mound or the height of the mound is, that's something he's going
08:40to continue to have to adjust to.
08:42I'm here for that.
08:43I'm not here for the mound in Seattle was too hard.
08:46That's an excuse.
08:47I just go back to the weather one real quick.
08:49Sure.
08:50I'm just looking in, in Japan's main cities, the average low temperatures in summer typically
08:55range from 63 degrees Fahrenheit to 74 degrees Fahrenheit.
08:59I just, yeah, that's an excuse.
09:02Big time excuse.
09:02You can't, like, to act like you've never seen 65 degree weather before or pitched in it.
09:08Yep.
09:09All right.
09:09The last two.
09:10He's having trouble adjusting to the lifestyle of being in the United States.
09:18The example that the interpreter used that he's used to eating back at the hotel instead
09:24of in the clubhouse, that's an excuse.
09:27I just can't, I understand, now the sum total of everything that's different when you come
09:32to a foreign country, it can be kind of overwhelming over time.
09:35I think that there's just, but, like, that can't be the thing you point to.
09:39I don't know.
09:40Even that, okay, so the general, because I put them as two separate things, because I
09:43felt like there were two quotes we read yesterday.
09:45One was about the lifestyle, and the other was about the time of day that the players
09:51eat.
09:52So you think those are both excuses?
09:54It wasn't even the time of day, it was just a matter of what the setup is, versus whether
09:58you go back to the hotel and eat dinner, or whether you eat at the clubhouse itself.
10:03Right, right, right.
10:03Yeah.
10:04Yeah.
10:04So, um, so...
10:05That's an excuse.
10:06Both excuses.
10:07Okay.
10:07Yeah.
10:07Okay.
10:08So the only thing that we are giving him grace on here is the height of the mound.
10:16Everything else is an excuse right now.
10:18And the differences in mounds from ballpark to ballpark.
10:21Yeah, but I guess at the same time, when you look at the sum total of it all, he might
10:25just, he's a guy that might have a harder time adjusting to extreme changes in his routine
10:31and his environment than other guys.
10:32And then it becomes a matter of just, okay, how well does he and the Astros, how well does
10:38he himself and how well do the Astros adapt to that and create some kind of a, to go back
10:43to the Royce White days, create a protocol for him.
10:46And we need to have the protocol to keep him feeling as comfortable as possible.
10:51Otani, and I hate to compare him to Otani because he's freaking Otani.
10:55You can't compare anybody to Otani from any nationality.
10:58But in what way are you comparing him?
10:58You're not comparing him as a player.
10:59But when Otani came over and had to adjust from how he did it in Japan to how he did
11:03it
11:04here, he was extremely regimented in having his, his small apartment near the ballpark.
11:09He just sounded like he was a monk basically that did nothing but the focus on getting
11:14all of his routine right and everything that, that maybe that's what he needs to do is just
11:20be incredibly precise in exactly how he's going about his preparation.
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