June 19--Tsuyoshi Wada not only threw seven shutout innings on Wednesday night, but he earned a new nickname in the process.
"A couple days ago, I brought him into the office in Chicago and I sat him down," manager Joe Maddon said. "I just wanted him to settle down and actually to get to know him better and understand what's going on. I told him, 'This next time out you're going to use your fastball, you're going to pitch seven innings and you're going to win, and when you get done I'm going to buy you a really nice bottle of wine.
"'But when you talk to the press, I want you to tell them 'I am a badass.' So as soon as I took him out of the game, I walked up to him and said 'Don't forget what you tell the press tonight.' He said 'I'm a badass.' Then he wrote it down on a piece of paper. It was outstanding."
Maddon said there was no actual Japanese translation of the phrase. The reason he told Wada to say it was because Wada is so humble and quiet.
"I thought it was great," Maddon said. "The point I was trying to get across was be more aggressive, more assertive and a badass. And it worked. It was beautiful man. It was funny."
Maddon asked the Japanese reporters how the new nickname played back in Japan. They told him it was well received.
