NPB Tracker

The Giants took game one of the Japan Series last night, beating Nippon Ham behind a rather hittable Dicky Gonzales. This is another post I had meant to go to prior to the Series starting, but that’s the way things go some times.

So on to the scattered thoughts and observations…

• If you would have told me at the beginning of the year that Gonzales would start game one of the Japan Series, I would have laughed pretty hard.
• Deanna and Gen went to their usual levels of detail in covering game one.
• Yu Darvish has been out of commission for quite a while now, but he it looks like he’s starting game two for Nippon Ham. Tetsuya Utsumi gets the call for the Giants.
• Speaking of Darvish, he’s been throwing lefthanded again.
• I know a game has already been played so it’s too late to say this, but I like Yomiuri’s roster over Nippon Ham’s. I like Yomiuri’s depth in this series.
• On the other hand, the last time Nippon Ham won the Japan Series (2006), Darvish was partnered at the front of the Figthers’ rotation by Tomoya Yagi, who won the Rookie of the Year award that season. After winning in ‘06, Yagi promptly faded into injured-list oblivion, and Darvish became the best pitcher in Japan. This year, Yagi made a comeback, posting a 2.88 ERA in 122 innings, and Ham is back in the Series.
• It’s interesting to see Nippon Ham playing Yomirui in the Series. Prior to Ham moving to Hokkaido, the Fighters shared the Tokyo Dome with the Giants, and seemed to be operating in Yomiuri’s shadow. It seemed like the Fighters used to frequently sign ex-Giants, but the only notable example I can think of is Hiromitsu Ochiai. Once the Fighters moved to Hokkaido and got out from under the Giants’ shadow, they got competitive.
• I missed a chance to post on this earlier, but I’ll do so now — when Nippon Ham eliminated Rakuten from the Climax Series, it marked the (latest) end to manager Katsuya Nomura’s career. I wouldn’t call myself a Nomura fan, but he is certainly a character, and as such I suppose this picture of him putting away his uniform for the last time is a little sad. After Nippon Ham’s win, both sides honored Nomura with the traditional celebratory douage (click the link if you don’t know what that is). This is, I think, an important distinction for Japanese baseball from American baseball. Nippon Ham won the game and the series, and it was very much their day, but the winning players and Nippon Ham fans still celebrated Nomura after the game.

I don’t think I’ll be up to watch the game tonight, so if anyone checks it out on justin.tv, please click the ‘watch later’ link, and paste the url into a comment.

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.

1990

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.

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.

NPB’s All-Star break has finally arrived, but there’s still plenty to read about. Here are today’s selections.

English links:

• Simon at jhockey looks at NPB team defensive stats.
• Random discovery on Google News: an article about Rakuten’s team translator.
• The New York Times reports on Ichiro’s 3000th hit, with a little inaccuracy.
• The Daily Yomiuri has a piece on the All-Star Game. American Colby Lewis as well as two others have drawn mandatory 10-day stints on the DL for withdrawing from the game.

Japanese Links:

• Softbank is aggressively trying to add a power-hitting import before the July 31 deadline. They’re said to be targetting a 3A player. We’ll know who they get soon. Probably won’t be Barry Bonds.
• Chunichi extended manager Ochiai for two more seasons. Seems like a no-brainer given the success he’s had.
• Koji Uehara picked up his first save of the year for the Giants.
• Chris Resop has made a good impression so far for Hanshin: shutting down the Dragons with only fastballs in his debut, and following that performance by showing good breaking stuff.
• Yahoo! Japan is reporting that Hanshin is interested in acquiring Lotte free agent-to-be Naoyuki Shimizu this off-season.　Shimizu is from Hanshin’s home territory, Hyogo Prefecture. Hanshin’s interest in impending Yokohama free agent, and Nara native Daisuke Miura was reported earlier this year.