Opening Day
The NPB season opened last night, 4/3, and I was remiss in only giving it a passing mention. Here are some highlights:
- Hisashi Iwakuma got the better of Yu Darvish, with Rakuten beating Nippon Ham 3-1. Darvish pitched a complete game in a losing effort, while Iwakuma went six innings, allowing one run while throwing only 59 pitches. Highlights are available on YouTube.
- Tsuyoshi Wada struck out 14 Orix Buffaloes in an 8-0 shutout victory. SoftBank may have to prove me wrong about their offense.
- Colby Lewis defeated countryman Seth Greisinger in the Carp’s 6-3 win over the Giants.
- Kevin Mench went 0-4 in his Hanshin debut, continuing his spring slump, but the Tigers beat the Swallows 5-2.
All the box scores in Japanese but I’ll have an English source for them soon. The WBC live chats were fun, I’m going to try doing that again during the season, if a) the time difference is reasonable and b) we can find a reliable live stream.
And in other brief news, yu-darvish.com is now an NPB Tracker property.
03/04/2009 at 9:52 am Permalink
Darvish had a rough first but obviously settled down quicky while Iwakuma was outstanding always getting a double play when he needed one.
Greisinger on the other hand was brutal. Unfortunately I can’t see the Giants winning it all with an “ace” like that.
03/04/2009 at 4:10 pm Permalink
I was looking for the Justin.tv stream of Iwakuma/Darvish but they were showing old NPB highlights. Was it an afternoon game?
03/04/2009 at 6:14 pm Permalink
It started at 6:00 JST. Were you using the link on my site? I think that feed may be out of date. I need to find a better one.
03/04/2009 at 6:30 pm Permalink
Seibu looked good despite a couple of overeager boneheaded baserunning mistakes by Kataoka that killed some potential rallies. Seibu outhit the Marines and showed that they have homerun power from anywhere in the lineup again this year.
03/04/2009 at 10:23 pm Permalink
Ham should have fired Nashida after he flushed the season down the toilet vs. Seibu last October and nothing about last night’s game changed that fact. Also, Ham absolutely does not need Nioka. I have no idea why he was batting 6th. Trading Michael was a good move (he was awful last year) but getting essentially nothing but a washed up injury-prone Giant was pointless. Michael for a bag of rice might have been a more balanced deal.
GO HAM!!! FIRE NASHIDA!!!!
04/04/2009 at 7:51 am Permalink
I’ve noticed over the years that such boneheaded base running mistakes often happen around the time that Koshien is going on. That’s the norm at Koshien, as there’s a good chance that the defense will fail on an “on the money or nothing” throw.
I would like to state, though, that the play at this Spring’s Senbatsu was well above usual, with a lot of kids getting thrown out at the plate. I guess Kataoka didn’t learn from their mistakes.
04/04/2009 at 8:49 am Permalink
Yeah, I did try to use the one linked here. I can see Giants games in Korea no problem and the odd Chunichi game, but beyond that I have to try and find feeds on the internet.
05/04/2009 at 11:33 pm Permalink
Wow, a Darvish vs. Iwakuma match-up. I wish I’d seen it. Anyway, in MLB’s opening night the closest thing to a Japanese player featured was a Hawaiian. Look out for Kawakami’s start against the Nationals on Saturday. Kawakami was roughed up in his final spring outing. He was unable to locate his fastball and didn’t make it out of the 3rd inning before he’d reached his pitch limit. He walked 1 fewer batter (7) than he retired (8). Bobby Cox attributed it to nerves and a bad day. Hopefully we’ll see a strong outing from Kawakami on Saturday evening.
06/04/2009 at 11:22 pm Permalink
Maybe I’ll try to schedule a live chat for one of his starts. Saturday won’t work for me though.