The new zone is here, but no one seems to know exactly what it is. It is clearly defined by the rules, the problem is that the game is too fast to deal with each pitch on an analytical level.
Determining strikes and balls is a learned task requiring strength, flexibility, good reflexes, common sense and some understanding of physics. The umpires have been told to re-learn their profession's most difficult skill, and they are struggling.
And as the men in blue fumble through the games, the batters--or at least those hitters who understand the concept of a strike zone--find themselves completely in the dark.
Japanese baseball used to pride itself on calling the width of the strike zone accurately--unlike the majors, where the zone had drifted away from hitters by the width of a ball or two. So the task of adopting the rule book definition of the zone was thought to be a simple one: Simply raise it from the belt to the mid-point between the belt and the top of the batter's shoulders.
But instantly learning a new way of judging strikes is only slightly easier than learning to write with your other hand.
The emphasis on high pitches has caused a problem no one anticipated.
"It's high," said Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes first baseman Yuji Yoshioka when asked his opinion of the new zone at Tokyo Dome on Monday. "And it's wide."
A little bit?
"Extremely."
It seems that telling the umps to change their view of the world has caused them to lose control of the one thing most of them were good at--calling pitches inside and outside.
And hitters have even less time than the umpire to decide on a pitch and, unlike the ump, can't take their time after the pitch has gone by to pronounce judgment. It's either strike or be struck out; eat or be eaten.
One PL hitter put it this way.
"When I came here I saw they were calling the ball inside a strike, so you adjust to that.
"Now you get a pitch way outside, and the umpire calls it a ball. Next time you see that pitch, it's a ball. Later, you come up and you see it, you don't swing and that's strike two. You don't know what to swing at anymore."
But according to this hitter, there's absolutely no payoff for all the craziness the new zone has unleashed.
"What did they change it for? To make the games faster? Look what's happening. You get two strikes and then the catcher stands up, Ball 1 up high. Then one's in the dirt, and one's outside: 3-2.
"It's not faster. It's a waste of energy."
Buffaloes slugger Norihiro Nakamura offered two words in English: "No sense."
Since the zone is something that's learned and it's currently undefined, every pitch except those that bounce in the dirt might conceivably be called a strike, so there has been relatively little visible complaint about this twilight zone, whose dimensions are constantly fluctuating in time and space.
And while the umpires aren't getting away with murder--manslaughter would be closer--the Buffaloes' Tuffy Rhodes said that allowing umpires license to call any high pitch a strike is dangerous.
Because the height of the zone is known but to God, catchers are often standing up to give targets on waste pitches up high.
"Don't let the catchers stand up and hold the glove up here (at eye level)," he said. "Pitcher misses and hits someone in the head. You could really hurt somebody.
"Letting the umpires call everything, even pitches way out their, it's just giving them permission to be bad."
Buffaloes manager, Masataka Nashida was less emphatic but acknowledged that some hitters, particularly low-ball hitters who know the zone and force the pitcher to throw strikes are getting killed.
"What are they going to do, get taller?" he asked.
"This way of changing everything all at once is very popular in Japan. They tried to that with the balk rule some years ago. All it did was cause problems because no one understood it. The solution created more trouble (than the problem it was supposed to solve). After a year and a half, they just forgot it like it never happened."
The Hot Corner appears each Thursday in The
Daily Yomiuri .