The 5’1” 114-pound knuckleball pitcher has gone 0-1 with a 6.60 ERA in her first four starts. Like almost every knuckleballer, Yoshida struggles with consistency -- two of her starts were very good while two were terrible. She is scheduled to make her fifth start of the year on Friday night at home against the Orange County Flyers.
Yoshida has been attracting a lot of attention this season -- and not just from the Japanese media. The CBS Evening news recently did a report on her -- the video can be found here.
Earlier this year, the Baseball Hall of Fame accepted her jersey and bat from her first appearance in the GBL for use in an exhibition on the contributions of women to the game of baseball. Her hit in that game was the first by a woman in a men's professional league since the Negro Leagues era.
I'm expecting it to be quite a spectacle on the 27th. It's not very often that you get a chance to see a woman pitch in a professional game against a team of men -- especially when that woman is an 18-year-old Japanese knuckleballer. If you don't yet have tickets for the game, I highly recommend you come on out to RAP and take advantage of this unique opportunity.
For more background information on Yoshida, check out a couple of our previous blog posts on her:
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