Irabu Wins Golden League Debut
Hideki Irabu won his first appearance for the Long Beach Armada, striking out six in six innings.
Reports out of Japan put his hardest fastball at 92 mph, and Sanspo has plenty of pictures if you’re interested.
Baseball in Japan & Around the World
Hideki Irabu won his first appearance for the Long Beach Armada, striking out six in six innings.
Reports out of Japan put his hardest fastball at 92 mph, and Sanspo has plenty of pictures if you’re interested.
Randy Johnson won his 300th game on Thursday, proving everyone who said we wouldn’t see another 300 winner after Tom Glavine wrong.
Lets look back at Johnson’s phenomenal career through his appearances in the old US-Japan Nichibei Series, which used to take place in November of even-numbered years.
Johnson vs. Hiromitsu Ochiai
Johnson vs. Koji Akiyama
Johnson vs. Akinobu Okada
Interestingly, Ochiai and Akiyama are now managing NPB teams, and Okada ran Hanshin for five years. Note that Johnson is pretty wild here, and is inconsistent with his follow through. Still, none of the hitters look good against him.
Now let’s fast forward ten years, to 2000.
Johnson vs Hideki Matsui
Johnson vs Tsuyoshi Shinjo
Johnson vs Norihiro Nakamura
Interestingly, all of these guys played in the majors in the years following this series. Johnson looks a lot more mature as a pitcher and a lot more fluid with his mechanics. He made Shinjo look like a fool in that at bat, though Shinjo was actually pretty good overall in the series.