The 2009 season is in the books, and the MVPs go to Yu Darvish in the Pacific League, with Alex Ramirez receiving the honor for the Central League. Darvish earns the award for the second time in his career and Ramirez obtains the award for the second straight season.
The Rookie of the Year award is received by Tokyo Yomiuri Giants outfielder Testuya Matsumoto, the first time in 51 years that two players from the same team received the RoY in consecutive years (Giants reliever Tetsuya Yamaguchi took the prize last year). The Pacific League award goes to reliever Tadashi Settsu of the Softbank Hawks.
The Best Nine Awards have also been announced and the winners are as follows:
The NPB regular season concluded in both leagues and the championship series will get under way Friday, October 16th JST. The Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, the winner of the Central League and the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, the winner of the Pacific League will get a bye during the first round.
The Chunichi Dragons and the Tokyo Yakult Swallows will square off in the first round of the Central League Championship series, and the Rakuten Golden Eagles versus the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks will match up in the Pacific League.
With the regular season in the books, the awards for each batting and pitching categories have been determined (Central League and Pacific League winners listed respectively):
Another season of baseball in the books and now the fight for the Championship will begin. It was another exciting year of regular season baseball in Japan as the attendance rose five percent compared to the previous season and the Hanshin Tigers continued their winning ways at the gate, earning the top attendance record for five straight seasons.
Patrick » 02 November 2008 » In npb » Comments Off
The Giants and Lions followed up Saturday’s pitcher’s duel with another closely fought game, as Yomiuri tied the Series up on Alex Ramirez’s walk-off home run. I didn’t get to watch the game, but I’ll share the Yahoo Japan box score and the YouTube highlights that I’ve found. Seibu starter Kazuyoshi Hoashi put a lot of runners on base, but his defense made plays behind him and kept the damage to a minimum. I didn’t realize that Seibu’s chunky 3rd baseman Takeya Nakamura was that competent with the glove.
You can catch Ramirez’s walk-off bomb at about 2:50 of this video. Seibu reliever Shinya Okamoto threw forkball in the dirt with his first pitch, then threw another on 0-1. He elevated the second one, and Ramirez took the mistake over the center field fence. Ramirez’s hero interview starts at about 4:55 in the same video.