Differences prove intriguing to Red Sox

TOKYO – Terry Francona looked stunned.

Might his Boston Red Sox actually be playing with the smaller Japanese baseball that could mess up their timing four days before their season opener?

“I was under the impression we were using ours for the whole time. I will check,” the manager of the World Series champions said with concern. “That would surprise me.”

It turned out the pregame rumor was just that. The balls that Boston used in Saturday’s 6-5 exhibition win over the Hanshin Tigers were the same size as the ones David Ortiz slugged for 35 homers last year.

Besides, there were enough differences from the American game without a tinier target at which to swing.

Like the two cages and two pitchers Japanese teams use during batting practice so two hitters can alternate swinging efficiently.

“We were out there in the dugout watching them,” Francona said. “It’s different. We’ve never seen that. I want to watch how it works.”

Or like the fans in the left-field seats of Tokyo Dome who chanted to the sound of a banging drum throughout each inning while Hanshin was at bat.

“The cheers were all in sync,” Kevin Youkilis said.

Or like the U.S.-trained eyes that looked toward the fences for new pitchers to enter the game only to see them trot out from the dugouts to the mound. As any Japanese baseball fan knows, the bullpens are behind the dugouts.

Boston has three more games in Tokyo – an exhibition against the Yomiuri Giants tonight and the first two games of the regular season against Oakland on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

Youkilis was curious about some differences during a walk he took with team translator Jeff Yamaguchi. The first baseman is from Ohio, typical of the Midwest where strangers greet each other on the street. He didn’t see that in Tokyo.

So he asked Yamaguchi.

“If you don’t know somebody,” he said the translator told him, “you don’t interact and say, ‘Hi.’ “

Youkilis did, however, have a pleasant encounter before the game.

“We had a cab driver today that was great,” he said. “He spoke a little bit of English and it worked out real well. We got here on time.”

But once the game started, Youkilis couldn’t come up with a ground ball hit inside the first-base bag that was ruled a single. That was different for a sure-handed fielder who was errorless in all 132 games he played at first last season.

“I should have had it,” he said.

There were some familiar touches for the Red Sox playing in a stadium known as The Big Egg that has a resemblance to the Metrodome, home of the Minnesota Twins, and even to Fenway Park.

The left-field wall is only 13 feet high but is painted nearly the same color as the 37-foot high Green Monster. Ortiz hit his first homer over the shorter wall in his first at-bat. J.D. Drew hit a three-run shot to left-center later in the four-run first.

“It’s always good to produce with men on base,” Drew said.