NPB Tracker

Four Japanese Articles to share today:

• Add the Softbank Hawks to the list of NPB teams interested in Nelson Cruz. It turns out that Softbank was trying to get Cruz last summer at the trading deadline, which I speculated about a few weeks ago. The Hawks are also interested in Padres reliever Brian Falkenborg.
• Indians GM Mark Shapiro expects the bidding for Junichi Tazawa to reach $7M. The Indians are not interested in Tazawa, nor are the Yankees or Diamondbacks.
• Shingo Takatsu is hoping to play another year in Korea. Shingo saved 8 games with an 0.86 era in 18 games for the Woori Heroes this season.
• The Hiroshima Carp’s new stadium will be known as Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium Hiroshima. Kind of a mouthful, I wonder if they could’ve just gone with one “zoom”.

I had to work late on Wednesday; late enough to catch the first couple of innings of Game 5 of the Japan Series, which was started by MLB-bound Koji Uehara. Uehara clearly didn’t have his best stuff — his breaking pitches were flat and he left several out over the plate. The Lions took advantage, cranking out seven hits in their first 17 at-bats. Hara removed Uehara after three innings of work, for a final line of:

Uehara got himself in to and out of jams in the 1st and 3rd innings and limited the damage by avoiding walks and home runs, but was otherwise pretty hittable. The Yomiuri relievers shut down the Lions down the rest of the way, as the Giants came back to win and take a 3-2 series lead.

Game 5 was probably the last time we’ll see Uehara pitch for the Giants. I’m holding out a little hope that the Giants will find a way to get him in to game 6 or 7 as a reliever, but with a deep bullpen that’s not likely unless we see extra innings. I think he can go out on a higher note than than this.