NPB Tracker

Headlines from the Japanese side of the web tonight:

• I caught a blurb on Softbank negotiating with a foreign power hitter in Sports Hochi. Says team COO Takeuchi, “when we reach the final stages we’ll make an announcement. Currently we’re negotiating”. This report is a little old and doesn’t hint at who it might be. Maybe negotiations didn’t go anywhere.
• Yu Darvish threw 165 pitches in Nippon Ham’s July 23 loss to Lotte. Darvish hung around until the 8th inning, allowing 5 earned runs on 11 hits and 5 walks while striking out 10. Sanspo quotes Nippon Ham manager Nashida: “I thought we’d go until 140. He himself said that’d go. His love for the team is intense. I thought he’s dependable”. Ham pitching coach Masato Yoshii commented that Darvish didn’t have his good stuff.
• Chris Resop hit 98 MPH on the gun in a practice with Hanshin. The coaches seem impressed. Tomoyuki Kubota holds the Hanshin record for fastest pitch in a game at 157 KM/H (98.125 MPH).
• Hiroshima made two minor trades recently that totally slipped by me. They picked up Rui Makino from Rakuten for Kenta Satake, and Akira Tanaka from Orix for Koji Yamazaki. There seem to be more trades happening in NPB recently.

As an addendum, I also posted some highlights from the Darvish game I mentioned.

English Links:

• Veteran NPB journalist Wayne Graczyk made a trip to Starfin Stadium in Asahikawa.
• Jim Allen has an article on Japan manager Senichi Hoshino’s decision to include Koji Uehara on the Olympic roster. Gutsy call by Hoshino; I think it was the right move.
• Looks like Jeff Williams updated his site.

Japanese Links:

• New Hanshin reliever Chris Resop has arrived in Japan. “Great!” he said adding, “they really cheer feverishly. I’ve never been to this kind of ballpark before. I’ve never seen this in America.” (note: translation of a translation).
• Uehara pitched two innings and struck out three in Yomiuri’s 4-1 loss to Yokohama.
• Former Twin Lew Ford has been demoted to Hanshin’s farm team for the third time this year.

Today’s news & links:

• Yu Darvish dominated Rakuten for his 11th win of the season: 9 IP, 10 K, 0 BB, 4 H, 1 ER on 89 pitches. Darvish’s league-leading ERA is now 1.88.
• Hanshin lost yesterday, cutting their lead to 11.5 in the Central League.
• Kazumi Saito has been rehabbing in Arizona, but he’s found time to attend a WNBA game and hang out with Jeremy Giambi.
• Victor Starfin’s daughter did indeed throw out the first pitch at the Giants’ July 15 game.
• NPB teams sending three or more players to the Olympics will be allowed to carry an additional foreign player while they’re Olympians are away. This means some teams will have up to five foreign players on their active rosters.

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last few days… took a little bit of an extended holiday weekend and did a little traveling. Hope my readers in America hada nice 4th of July. Here are today’s bullet points:

• Hanshin is cruising with a 7-game winning streak(link in English) and has opened up a massive 12.5 game lead on 2nd place Chunichi. They’ve also “lit up” their magic number to clinch a playoff spot. It currently stands at 55.
• In other Hanshin news, pitcher Wakatake threw a no-hitter for the Tigers’ farm team.
• Yu Darvish will be starting the All-Star Game for the Pacific League. Colby Lewis gets the call for the Central League.
• MVPs for the month of June. Central League: Kenshin Kawakami (Chunichi), Tomoaki Kanemoto (Hanshin); Pacific League: Hisashi Iwakuma (Rakuten), Craig Brazell (Seibu). Note that a profile on Kawakami is on my to-do list.
• I stumbled across a new English-language Korean Baseball Blog. Here’s a link.
• Deanna at Marinerds, etc posted a blog about her trip to a minor league game in Japan. Lots of good photos.
• In another stumbling, I found this guy’s YouTube page. Tons of game highlights, posted regularly. All videos in Japanese.

Just picked up this thread from JapaneseBaseball.com that says that Hanshin has purchased the contract of reliever Chris Resop from the Braves. Interestingly, shortly before reading that thread, I saw this re-run of an article on Sanspo, which said that Hanshin had a scout in the US looking for relief help for when Bullpen aces Kyuji Fujikawa and Tomoyuki Kubota will be away for the Olympics.

I’ve never seen Resop pitch, but he’s appeared in parts of four MLB seasons. He might be kind of a AAAA guy since he’s put up respectable numbers in minors but hasn’t found sustained MLB success yet. Check out his full stats here. Resop is still only 25, so there’s room for him to develop as well.

NPB and related news from around the Internet…

• Shingo Takatsu picked up his first save in Korea. Shingo took the ball in the 8th inning and pitched 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief in Woori’s 4-1 win over LG. Takatsu becomes the first player to save a game in NPB, MLB, and KBO.
• Koji Uehara pitched a scoreless 9th in the Giants 6-1 victory over Hiroshima. Uehara retired the side in order in his return.
• Orix’s addition of John Koronka has been made official.
• Aarom Baldiris had his first big hit in Japan in Hanshin’s 6/27 game against Yakult. Baldiris’s two run-single gave the Tigers a lead they would never lose in their 7-2 win over the Swallows. Baldiris has earned regular playing time after being promoted from the farm team.
• According to Sanspo, Hanshin has sent a scout to the United States to look into acquiring another foreign player. Team president Numasawa was quoted as saying he wants to be prepared if any of the foreign players on the current roster go down with an injury. The article speculates that Hanshin could be looking for relief help, as some of it’s bullpen will be absent during the Olympics.
• Former Ranger Jason Botts offically joined Nippon Ham. Botts was introduced to the press in Osaka and will start off with the Fighters’ farm team.

Note: all links in Japanese.