NEW YORK — In retrospect, maybe Yusei Kikuchi should not have mentioned the sleep thing, because now his fellow Blue Jays won’t let it go. But he seems bewildered by the attention. No, he wasn’t really joking when he attributed his early exit in Tuesday’s win over the Yankees to left trapezius cramping from a poor night of sleep: He only got 11 hours. He prefers 13 or 14.
“My teammates asked me how I'm able to sleep so much,” he says through interpreter Yusuke Oshima. “But, like, honestly, if you close your eyes, I feel like you should be able to sleep.”
It typically takes Kikuchi about five minutes to nod off, and he begins his bedtime process with 10 minutes of meditation. He does not need fancy accouterments or especially dark rooms, although he has become fond of a pillow he ordered on Amazon. He says he would consider an endorsement deal with a mattress company.
