Darvish and Gonzalez to Start Game 1
Yu Darvish (Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters) and Dicky Gonzalez (Yomiuri Giants) will get the starts for the Game 1 of the All-Star game hosted at the Sapporo Dome. Darvish will have only one day of rest in between from his outing against the Chiba Lotte Marines throwing a complete game for the league leading 12th win. He is still scheduled to throw two innings at the All-Star game hosted in his home stadium.
Tetsuya Yamaguchi (Tokyo Yomiuri Giants) will be the first player to participate in the All-Star game starting his career from the Ikusei Player System. Tadashi Settsu, a reliever for the Softbank Hawks will be the only rookie in participating in the All-Star game.
The Fresh All-Star game, which is the All-Star game for the Ni-gun was held at the Sapporo Dome. The starters for this game was Kenji Tsuchiya (Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters), a 4th-round draft pick from 2008, and Taiwan-born Sho Iketsu (Xiao Yijie), a 1st round draft pick from the Hanshin Tigers in the 2008 draft.
The game resulted one-sided with the Eastern League defeating the Western League, 7-0. The MVP of the game was another player hoping to call Sapporo Dome his home in the near future, Sho Nakata. The 1st rounder from the 2007 draft went 2-4 with two doubles, 2RBI, RS, BB and a SB. Taishi Ota, first rounder from the Yomiuri Giants in the 2008 draft went 1-5 with a double.