Wei Chuan Dragons' Coach Not Worried About Meisai's Early Season Pitching

In Taiwan's highly competitive professional baseball league, the performance of foreign players often garners significant attention. This season, the Wei Chuan Dragons' pitcher Meisai, formerly known as Mercedes, has experienced a somewhat uneven start. While his overall pitching content is deemed acceptable by the coaching staff, his inability to consistently pitch deep into games, specifically failing to complete six innings in his recent starts, has become a talking point.

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Pitcher deployment should be asked of the pitching coach, but I think it's only been a month since the season started, so there's no need to pitch long innings.

Head coach Yeh Chun-chang, a respected figure in Taiwanese baseball, has expressed a measured approach to Meisai's early-season performance. He rightly points out that the season is still young, with only a month having passed. This perspective suggests a belief in Meisai's potential and a strategy of not pushing pitchers too hard too early. The focus, for now, seems to be on building stamina and refining mechanics rather than demanding immediate ace-level innings counts.

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There's no need to pitch a full six innings from the start, and his pitching content is still quite good.

An incident during Meisai's last start, where he had a slight collision with a fellow countryman, batter Magic Moller, highlights the physical demands of the game. Although Meisai indicated he was not significantly affected, the coach acknowledged that such events can have a subtle impact. Consequently, Meisai has been sent to the minor league for a period of adjustment. This decision, common in baseball, allows players to regain form and confidence away from the pressure of the main league games. From a local perspective, this is a standard procedure aimed at optimizing player performance for the long season ahead, reflecting the meticulous player management characteristic of Taiwanese baseball.

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At the time, he said it didn't affect him, but it probably did to some extent, but fortunately, it wasn't a major issue.