NPB Tracker

Yomiuri vs Chunichi, Lotte vs SoftBank and Yokohama vs Hanshin.

More data from Yu Darvish’s most recent start against the Lions

Note that Darvish got every pitch in his arsenal over for at least one called strike, but the Lions were mostly able to make contact when the swung.

If you’re wanting to watch some pro yakyu, justin.tv has today’s Hanshin vs Yokohama game.

Watch live video from athletics channel on Justin.tv

Here is the velocity chart from Yu Darvish’s win last night over Seibu. More info coming later. More info is here.

Click the chart to view full size.

There are more velocity charts here and here. You can get all the velocity charts here. Is this data compelling? npbtracker@gmail.com

Both Koji Uehara and Kenshin Kawakami have made their first MLB starts. Each had a solid debut game, but regressed in game two. Being on the west coast, I didn’t see more than ESPN highlights of any of the games (and I haven’t seen anything from Kawakami’s game today).

So to those of you who saw the game, what are your thoughts?

After spending 24 years on the riverbed of Osaka’s polluted Dotonbori, the statue of Colonel Sanders has reemerged. The statue was thrown into the river 24 years ago when fans were celebrating the Hanshin Tigers’ first championship championship since 1964. The statue apparently looked similiar to star player, Randy Bass, and the fans decided to throw the statue into the air to honor him. Nobody thought it was a good idea to pull the statue back up at the time.

24 years have passed and despite coming close on occassions, the Tigers have not reached the top of NPB since. Although it is nowhere near the drought of the Chicago Cubs and their Billy Goat curse, fans have come to believe the Curse of Colonel Sanders is the reason that the Tigers haven’t won another Japan championship. However with its re-discovery on March 10th, die-hard Tigers fans hope that the drought will finally come to an end.

Even though the disappearance of the Colonel Sanders statue was due to fans overreacting after the championship, the Hanshin Tigers are capable of  promoting and marketing the return of the Colonel Sanders as part of thier folklore. The statue has been on couple television shows already and the team hopes to retrieve the statue for the future as it will be taken to the Kentucky Fried Chicken Office in Tokyo for the time being.

The Sankei News has comments from the new manager, Akinobu Mayumi: “The reason for the drought probably is not all about the Colonel Sanders, but receiving all this attention, we should definitely bring the statue back to Koshien.” It is somewhat ironic that he was part of the 1985 championship Hanshin Tigers as a player and will manage his first season in the year that the Colonel Sanders has returned.

There are number of speculations on the future of the statue with stories such as the Chicago Cubs might being interested in borrowing the statue. However, the obvious should be to place the statue in the  Koshien history museum, which will open to public on March of 2010. There is a different Colonel Sanders statue stationed in front of the KFC stand inside Koshien Stadium (the only Colonel Sanders statue inside a ballpark in Japan) and it’s increasing popularity with fans attending the national tournament taking their time to take pictures with the statue.

PR staff from KFC comments: “it’s the only one in the world. We hope to face the “Old” Colonel Sanders statue with our statue inside the ballpark and form a duo.”

The 2008-09 free agents page is once again available here.

Since retiring, Hideo Nomo has been working as a “technical advisor” with the Orix Buffaloes, the current incarnation of his former NPB team. Nomo just went on his first road trip with the Buffaloes, accompanying the team on their three-game trip to Hokkaido to face the Fighters. He won’t be in uniform, but he’ll be watching the games and working with team’s pitchers.

That’s pretty thin news, but it’s an excuse to say that I always thought it was lame the way Nomo went out — released by the Royals after a vagabond trek through the minors, disabled lists and South American winter leagues. I was hoping Orix would sign him to a one-day contract and give him a proper sendoff, but judging by the shape he’s in I don’t think it’ll happen.

Young fireballer Masahiro Tanaka and submariner Shunsuke Watanabe faced off on April 14 in a great pitcher’s duel. Tanaka got the best of Watanabe, but Shunsuke held Rakuten at bay despite allowing 12 baserunners in seven innings of work. And they couldn’t have been more different in their approaches. Tanaka was routinely in the mid-90’s with his fastball, and only threw three pitches below 80mph, while the submarining Watanabe didn’t touch 80 the whole game. Have a look at the velocity charts to see the difference between the two.

click images to view full size

Here’s a clip of Tanaka striking out Shoitsu Ohmatsu to end the game.

Sponichi is reporting that Ken Kadokura is heading to Korea to sign a deal with the SK Wyverns. The Wyverns were the first team to make Kadokura an offer after he was released by Yomiuri, but he chose to pursue an MiLB contract instead. SK also has former MLB’er and SoftBank Hawk CJ Nitkowski under contract.

For more on Kadokura, please read this earlier post.