From Newsday

YANKEES INSIDER

Sinker puts Wang's career on the rise

JIM BAUMBACH

August 4, 2006

That Chien-Ming Wang has become a rock atop the Yankees' rotation is not surprising to team officials. That's what they paid about $2 million for in May 2000.

But the way he's doing it - with a nasty sinker - could not have been predicted by any team official then.

When the Yankees beat out the Braves and Rockies to sign him as an international free agent by offering Wang the most money, the sinker wasn't a part of his repertoire.

They liked that his fastball was in the 90s and that he threw strikes and had great mound presence. But it wasn't until he was here for a full season that organizational pitching guru Billy Connors decided to teach him the sinker grip, saying yesterday during a telephone interview, "It was a natural because of the way he held the ball inside the stitches."

The pitch didn't pay immediate dividends. Wang kept getting blisters on his fingers in the 2003 and 2004 seasons, prompting him to abandon the pitch periodically. He experienced mediocre results then, but he and the Yankees are enjoying the payoff now.

Wang, who now has calluses on his fingers that allow him to throw his heavy sinker almost nonstop, has not allowed a run in his last 18 innings. He's relied on a pitch that typically reaches the mid-90s for an amazing rate of groundouts - 36 of the 54 outs during his scoreless streak have come via the ground ball.

Wang (13-4, 3.58 ERA) leads the American League with 26 ground-ball double plays, and his 3.32 groundout-to-flyout ratio is .31 better than the next- best pitcher, Cleveland's Jake Westbrook. Since June 3, Wang is 8-2 with a save and a 2.41 ERA in 11 starts and one relief appearance.

"Maybe 95 percent of the pitchers who come over the Pacific Rim, they all throw four-seam pitches," said John Cox, the Yankees' coordinator of Pacific Rim scouting. "Very seldom do you see any pitcher with sinking movement on their fastballs.

"The pitching coaches and managers there are so adamant about throwing strikes, they are worried that if you have movement on your ball, you may not be able to control it."

Not that control was a problem with Wang, even at the age of 19. Cox saw him pitch during a tournament in Taiwan and said, "He was a strike- thrower from the start."

Wang was impressive the first time Cox saw him, but not necessarily top-dollar-worthy. But Cox saw something that intrigued him enough for him to stick around while several other scouts left for another tournament in Japan, a decision that paid great dividends.

The next time Wang pitched, Cox said, two errors put runners on second and third with one out in a tight game.

"It was maybe the first jam he was in, and all of a sudden that 89 fastball becomes 93, just like that, out of nowhere," Cox said. "His facial expression changed a bit and you could see determination, the focus. You could just feel it, that he had to get the job done."

Wang got two straight strikeouts, and Cox was on the phone with senior vice president of player personnel Gordon Blakeley that night. A few days later, Blakeley was on a plane overseas ready to close the deal.

But after Wang joined the Yankees' farm system, his rise was not smooth. He suffered a torn labrum that required surgery in his first spring training. He came back strong in 2002 but never had success until he was at Triple-A Columbus at the end of 2004.

That was when the Yankees were quick to trade their prospects for major-league help, and GM Brian Cashman said yesterday, "There was a period where he could have been" traded. But he said few teams ever expressed interest. "I'm thankful for that," Cashman said.

Wang had another scare last year but impressed team officials by returning in early September from a July shoulder injury that threatened to end his season. Now Wang, 26, is perhaps the Yankees' best pitcher, not to mention a full-fledged superstar in his homeland.

The Taiwanese government, in an attempt to build national pride, produced a commercial featuring Wang in the back seat of a New York City cab.

After Wang tells the driver he is from Taiwan, the driver asks, "Where is Taiwan? You want to show me where Taiwan is?"

After a few clips of Wang starring on the mound - recording strikeouts, not ground balls - he says, "I will show you."

Fortunately for the Yankees, they already knew.