PEORIA, Ariz. -- Padres reliever Kazuhisa Makita was a freshman at Seisei Kogyo High School in Japan when one of his coaches hatched an audacious idea. At the time, Makita's windup was relatively innocuous. But the torque in his body led that coach to believe he might succeed if he lowered his arm angle.
And not just by a little bit. The way Makita tells it, he was asked to throw "underhand," his knuckles coming mere inches from the dirt on the pitching mound.
"The very first pitch I threw was good," Makita said through a team interpreter, as he met with media for the first time since signing a two-year deal with the Padres in January.