Dead Ball (JPN Baseball Thread)

[GuyJean]

.. http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200903183981147..

I didn't see that at work yesterday. Thanks! Must've been working.

Johjima's doing really well in the WBC. If he sucks for the Mariners this year as much as he did last year, they should send his ass home; He's not trying hard enough..

Of course, he is kind of a spurty player; can go on a tear for awhile then look like an amateur for months..

GJ

[Greji]

[quote="GuyJean"]I didn't see that at work yesterday. Thanks! Must've been working.

Johjima's doing really well in the WBC. If he sucks for the Mariners this year as much as he did last year, they should send his ass home]

He sucks. He is only still with the Mariners because of Nintendo...

[Greji]

Korea leads Venezuela 10-1 in a real pitchers duel after six....

And I actually thought Venezuela was the team to beat in the WBC....I guess nobody told Korea how tough they were!

[Captain Japan]

Korea leads Venezuela 10-1 in a real pitchers duel after six....

And I actually thought Venezuela was the team to beat in the WBC....I guess nobody told Korea how tough they were!

I was touting Venezuela in the WBC thread but at the time I didn't know Carlos Silva was starting this game! The M's brass can't be looking forward to another season of starts from that guy.

It looks like Oswalt is going for the U.S. tomorrow. If Dicey-K reverts to his MLB-usual-100-pitches-before-5-innings form it could be a tight game. But if he is on, Japan should take it.

[Greji]

It looks like Oswalt is going for the U.S. tomorrow. If Dicey-K reverts to his MLB-usual-100-pitches-before-5-innings form it could be a tight game. But if he is on, Japan should take it.

Korea filed Venezuela 10-2 and will play the Samurai/Yank winner. Korea's hot and with a couple days off, whoever wins tomorrow is going to have their hands full.

I agree with you about Dicey and if he's not right, Oswald can be tough with a couple of runs. Japan has not been hitting well. Still they're facing a crippled and depleted US squad even with the pick-up of Longoria. The smart money will probably be on Japan for pitching.

[Captain Japan]

Korea filed Venezuela 10-2 and will play the Samurai/Yank winner. Korea's hot and with a couple days off, whoever wins tomorrow is going to have their hands full.

I agree with you about Dicey and if he's not right, Oswald can be tough with a couple of runs. Japan has not been hitting well. Still they're facing a crippled and depleted US squad even with the pick-up of Longoria. The smart money will probably be on Japan for pitching.

TBS is replaying the game. Silva doesn't look good but the Venezuela team looks asleep. That play by Abreu was a total disgrace!

You are right about Korea, neither the U.S. or Japan squad looks as good at this point as they do.

[Captain Japan]

TBS is replaying the game. Silva doesn't look good but the Venezuela team looks asleep. That play by Abreu was a total disgrace!

You are right about Korea, neither the U.S. or Japan squad looks as good at this point as they do.

It's the samurais versus Korea in the finals. Dicey-K really did revert back to his 100-pitches-before-5-innings form but the U.S. just couldn't get anything going. The Japanese news kept talking about "small ball" last night and certainly the U.S. wasn't doing much of that, blowing chance after chance. Two of those three errors by the U.S. were killers, and Japan took advantage.

Why on earth did Darvish come in for the 9th when up by 5? He's not starting tomorrow?

[AssKissinger]

Why on earth did Darvish come in for the 9th when up by 5? He's not starting tomorrow?

I think he's allowed to start as long as he threw under 35 pitches or something like that.

[Captain Japan]

I think he's allowed to start as long as he threw under 35 pitches or something like that.

That's not my point. Japan didn't need to bring their best (or second best) pitcher into a 5-run game to get three outs when he is supposed to start the next day. The game was basically over.

[Mike Oxlong]

That's not my point. Japan didn't need to bring their best (or second best) pitcher into a 5-run game to get three outs when he is supposed to start the next day. The game was basically over.

It's called "the fear"™...

[GuyJean]

In Depth: Japan's Up-And-Coming Baseball Stars
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/23/japan-baseball-players-lifestyle-sport-japan-baseball.html - Slideshow

.. Who's Next?

Picking the Japanese players who might make the leap to MLB is a favorite parlor game among baseball fans. The name that's on everyone's lips this year is Darvish, the 22-year-old half-Iranian, half-Japanese pitcher who plays for Hokkaido's Nippon Ham Fighters team.

"Darvish is obviously the top pitcher, but he's too young. He's the next Matsuzaka," says Ira Stevens, who runs the Japan-based Web site ScoutDragon.com, which sells information on Asian players for MLB scouts looking to import talent from the region.

Other top prospects include Tokyo Yakult Swallows center fielder Norichika Aoki, 27, who is rumored to want to go, and the country's best catcher, Shinnosuke Abe, 30, of the Yomiuri Giants, Japan's answer to the Yankees. Hitoki Iwase, 34, a closer from the Chunichi Dragons who decided not to join the WBC team this year, has also said he's interested...

Kyuji Fujikawa
Position: Relief Pitcher
Team: Hanshin Tigers
2008 Stats: 68 IP, 34 H, 90 K, 0.67 ERA, 38 SV
Age: 28
Plays for the Hanshin Tigers, where he is the country's best reliever. Stevens notes that he was born to be on the diamond, with a name that means "ball child." Has said he's interested in making the jump to the MLB.

GJ

[Gilligan]

Ichiro has been placed on the 15-day DL with a bleeding ulcer.

[Gilligan]

Tazawa seems to have impressed a lot of scouts this spring. Here's what Peter Gammons had to say about him:

Junichi Tazawa, Red Sox right-handed pitcher. This was the biggest surprise of the spring. Signed out of an industrial league in Japan, the 22-year-old shocked people with his command (he threw one ball per inning in his last two minor league starts). "He'd have been in the top six to 10 in this June's draft," says one scout, "and his feel might have moved him into the top five.

I don't care what level you're pitching at, if you can make 2 consecutive starts and average 1 ball / inning (which probably translates to something in the neighborhood of 90% of your pitches being strikes), that's impressive control.

[AssKissinger]

Ichiro has been placed on the 15-day DL with a bleeding ulcer.

Of course, it's not losing up in Seattle that's causing it]Suzuki played for Japan in the World Baseball Classic. He complained of severe fatigue earlier this week and missed Seattle's final three spring training games in Arizona, and was diagnosed with the ulcer -- a relatively rare condition for an athlete -- after seeing doctors Thursday[/QUOTE]

btw

http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090411&content_id=4225972&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl

Braves' new Japanese star defeats Nats
Kawakami fans eight in debut

[GuyJean]

[quote="AssKissinger"]Of course, it's not losing up in Seattle that's causing it]If this is the way Seattle plays because of the WBC, I wish the event was every year!

GJ

[Bucky]

If this is the way Seattle plays because of the WBC, I wish the event was every year!

GJ

It really helps the Bill Bavasi is long gone.

[Bucky]

Ichiro being congratulated by Manager Don Wakamatsu after his homer.

Ichiro made a grand re-appearance at Safeco Field last night:

2 for 5 with a single and a Grand Slam homerun and 4 rbi.

The M's won 11-3 and are 7 and 2 with the best record in the AL.

Who would of thunk it? Of course the season is early and their is plenty of time for them to remember they lost over a 100 games last season, but for now, the team is playing well.

[Greji]

Ichiro being congratulated by Manager Don Wakamatsu after his homer.

Ichiro made a grand re-appearance at Safeco Field last night:

2 for 5 with a single and a Grand Slam homerun and 4 rbi.

The M's won 11-3 and are 7 and 2 with the best record in the AL.

Who would of thunk it? Of course the season is early and their is plenty of time for them to remember they lost over a 100 games last season, but for now, the team is playing well.

Their pitching has gotta hold up.....

[Captain Japan]

[BO-SENSEI]

With all these injuries to Japanese baseball players coming back from the WBC, it makes you wonder if they are going to be given a chance to do it again. It must piss off the owners who pay these guys millions only to mess it up by injuring themselves doing something not related to the team.

[Gilligan]

With all these injuries to Japanese baseball players coming back from the WBC, it makes you wonder if they are going to be given a chance to do it again. It must piss off the owners who pay these guys millions only to mess it up by injuring themselves doing something not related to the team.

I'm not sure there's much correlation between participation in the WBC and the injuries to Japanese MLBers.

Ichiro's ulcer--as current research has found that the 2 most common causes of ulcers are bacteria (H. pylori) and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, it's seems silly to think there's any connection between Ichiro's trip to the DL and his participation in the WBC, regardless of how the Japanese press may try to romanticize it.

Matsuzaka's shoulder strain--not surprisingly the BoSox are happy to blame it on the WBC. Far be it from me to argue the point.

Johjima's hammy pull--seems funny to me, as hamstring pulls are, to my knowledge, usually associated with being out of shape, so I don't really see the connection with the WBC.

So you've got 1-out-of-3. Seems HIGHLY inconclusive and not really worthy of speculation at this point.

[Mulboyne]

Seattle Times: Ichiro and the Japanese hits record

It was somewhat lost in the multi-faceted excitement of Wednesday's 11-3 victory over the Angels, but Ichiro's pursuit of the Isao Harimoto's hits record is a big, big deal in Japan. The 68-year-old Harimoto, who had a long and distinguished career (he debuted in 1959 and retired in 1981) is the only Japanese player to achieve 3,000 hits -- 3,085, to be exact. He also hit 504 homers and had a .319 career average, making him one of their all-time greats. Ichiro had 1,278 hits in Japan for the Orix Blue Wave from 1992-2000, and now has 1,807 for the Mariners, counting his two last night. That's a total of 3,085 -- tied with Harimoto. When he surpasses Harimoto's total, does that make him the Japanese hits leader, considering his career has been split between Japan and North America? I'm sure that topic is being hotly debated on sports talk radio in Japan and in newspaper columns.

To me, it's a moot point. Both can claim tremendous achievements. Ichiro will have the most hits of any Japanese professional player. Harimoto will remain the hit king of the Japanese major leagues. Each individual fan and observer can judge for him or herself the significance of those milestones, much like each fan in 1961 could judge for himself how Roger Maris hitting 61 homers in a 162-game season compared to Babe Ruth hitting 60 in a 154-game season. If you feel there's an asterisk needed for Ichiro, you can apply your own. Here's the opinion of Harimoto himself, who traveled to Seattle to watch Ichiro and was in attendance Wednesday. He spoke to reporters before last night's game. "Yes, it's a real record,'' he said of Ichiro's combined mark. But asked if he considers himself the record holder in Japan, Harimoto replied (through an interpreter), "A hundred years from now, I'm still the record holder in Japan.''

(Freelance journalist Brad Lefton, a fluent Japanese speaker who has written numerous outstanding articles for the Seattle Times on Japanese ballplayers, has an in-depth piece on Harimoto ready to go. We'll be publishing it after the record is broken. I don't want to give too much away, but he's had a fascinating life. I mean Harimoto, not Lefton -- but I hear Brad's brother is the finest magician in greater St.Louis).

Harimoto pointed out that in Japan, great hitters are walked much more often than Ichiro has been over here. That fact, he believes, makes it difficult for a player in Japan to surpass his mark. "If you hit that many, pitchers are always going to walk you,'' he said. "Here, Ichiro could have five hits and they're still going to pitch to him. In Japan if you have two hits in the game, they are going to walk you or worse (he pointed at his head, indicating the hitter would be knocked down or hit)." Harimoto apparently pegged Ichiro years ago as the man likely to surpass his total. "Actually when he was in Japan, I told him that he was going to break my record,'' he said. "That was probably like 15 years ago. I don't remember telling him that, but Ichiro remembers very well. He told me about it. "At that time I could tell Ichiro was already really good."

He still is, and after tonight, Ichiro could very well have more hits than any Japanese player in history.

[Gilligan]

[Mulboyne]

[Bucky]

After Ichiro broke the record last night, Harimoto was introduced to the crowd at Safeco. He must have spent five minutes bowing in every direction at the stadium to the applauding fans. He did come across as humble.

It was also interesting in the post game interview on TV following the game on 15th where Ichiro hit the grandslam, Ichiro answered the questions directly from the American interviewer. Of course he answered in Japanese, but he knew exactly what was being asked of him and did not wait for the questions to be interpreted. I am a little tired of Mr. Prefect continuing to rely on an interpreter to answer for him -- after having been here for more that eight seasons you know he can function in English.

[Greji]

[Behan]

[Behan]

On a quick note, the Yankees are in the process of getting spanked again this season. They are in the process of being blown out by the Indians and have already been spanked this year by the Rays.

The Indians scored 14 runs in the second inning.

I guess I can justify posting this here because Cleveland has Kobayashi on the mound.

[Greji]

On a quick note, the Yankees are in the process of getting spanked again this season. They are in the process of being blown out by the Indians and have already been spanked this year by the Rays.

The Indians scored 14 runs in the second inning.

I guess I can justify posting this here because Cleveland has Kobayashi on the mound.

Set some records with that. BTW I believe Uehara is starting for Gil's Gulls, (AKA: the Baltimore Buzzards) tomorrow....

[Gilligan]

Set some records with that. BTW I believe Uehara is starting for Gil's Gulls, (AKA: the Baltimore Buzzards) tomorrow....

Indeed he did. And he did a dang good job as well-- 7 innings, 5 hits, 2 earned runs, a walk, and 5 Ks. Alas the O's still lost 2-1.