NPB Tracker

Having just completed a four game season sweep of the Yomiuri Giants, the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks are playing unbelievably well right now. As of this date, they sit atop the Pacific League with a 32-11-3 (.744) record. They have basically buried their PL rivals (save for the Nippon Ham Fighters, who are 3 games behind in the standings) and it’s only early June.

How have they done it? With their excellent starting pitching, for the most part.

Good starting pitching has been the hallmark of the Hawks’ success over the past decade or so. But recent years haven’t been kind to former starters like Nagisa Arakaki and Kazumi Saitoh, and the Hawks have been forced to move on. Coming into 2011, they found themselves left with only Tsuyoshi Wada and Toshiya Sugiuchi as reliable names in the rotation.

Having given 19 and 20 starts last season to Kenji Otonari and Shinsuke Ogura respectively, the Hawks went in another direction this year. They moved 2009 Rookie of the Year Tadashi Settsu into the rotation full time, and it has worked splendidly. Even counting the 8 run drubbing he took over 4 1/3 innings in his first start on April 16th, he has performed to the tune of a 5-2 record with a 3.09 ERA.

D.J. Houlton has returned to his 2009 form after a rough campaign in 2010. The 5.70 ERA seems to be nothing but a memory as he is among the league leaders in ERA (1.84) and leads his team in wins (7), innings pitched (63 2/3), and shutouts (2).

20-year old Hiroki Yamada has shored up the back of the rotation nicely. He has already surpassed his innings pitched total from last year and has cut his walks in half, his runs allowed by 60% and dropped his ERA over 2.5 runs, all while maintaining his strikeout rate.

Even Sho Iwasaki has come out of nowhere to provide spot starts, so far going 1-1 with a 2.66 ERA in four starts.

All of this has added up to a stellar 2.12 team ERA. Though not to mitigate the importance of the contributions that players like Seiichi Uchikawa, Nobuhiro Matsuda, and others have made on the offensive side of the game this season, it’s been all about the pitching.

Yes, the new ball has been a factor in shaping these numbers. But the retooling of Softbank’s rotation has been nothing short of astounding. Just check their record.

First links roundup in a while, as usual all in Japanese today.

• The monthly MVPs were announced yesterday. In the Pacific League, Yu Darvish and Tadahito Iguchi won, while Wladimir Balentien and Tetsuya Utsumi took home the prizes in the Central League. It’s nice to see Balentien get the award this month as I think he got robbed in April.
• At an elementary school visit, Darvish was asked “why did you start to play baseball?”, to which he answered “when I was an elementary school student I also played ice hockey but the practices were tough.” I could see Darvish as a defenseman with great reach.
• Nippon Ham racked up a team scoreless streak of 52 innings last week, tying the NPB record set by Hanshin in 1942. After the streak came to an end Saturday against Yakult, Nippon Ham immediately went out and put up back-to-back shutouts against Yomiuri, so they already have another 18 inning scoreless streak. Nippon Ham has a cool 2.21 team ERA, which amazingly is second to Softbanks 2.15.
• My re-translation of Alex Cabrera’s comments regarding his 350th NPB home run wound up getting translated to Spanish for a Venezuelan publication. Now that this has gone through a few iterations I’d love to see how close this Spanish translation comes to Cabu’s original remarks.
• Cleveland minor leaguer Tooru Murata has a blog going. One post that caught my eye was this one, in which he writes about traveling by bus, saying “the air conditioning is too strong so the bus is too cold. I lose the feeling in my fingertips.” Murata seems to be on the DL, but he has a good K:BB ratio so far this year. He very experienced for his level though.
• Orix is selling “pro model uniforms” jerseys this summer, for JPY 34,500.
• This photo was taken above Hakkodate Ocean Stadium in Hokkaido back on May 15th.
• Personal non-news observation #1: I haven’t watched much major league baseball at all this year, but yesterday I watched a bit of the Giants game against Colorado. The Giants started a righthanded #32, who I had never seen before, and I kept thinking “wow, this guy is great, who is he?” It turned out to be former Hanshin and Orix pitcher Ryan Vogelsong.
• Personal non-news observation #2: I don’t think any pitcher in NPB enjoys what he does as much as Orix’s Yuki Nishi does. I’ve really enjoyed watching him this season.

Note: I’ve made some additions, based on suggestions from the comments.

I get most of my NPB knowledge from Japanese sources, but there is tons of great content on Japanese baseball being published in English every day. Here’s a rundown of sites and sources that I heartily recommend.

The Blogosphere

• I’ll have to open with Yakyu Baka, curated by the tireless Gen. If you’re looking for thorough, current information on Japanese baseball, this is the first place to stop.
• Boston-based longtime Japanese baseball guy Daigo Fujiwara now has content in blog format on his site, japaneseballplayers.com.
• JapaneseBaseball.com made Japanese baseball accessible to me, as it certainly has many others, while I was still navigating through the tricky early waters of the Japanese language. It remains a fantastic resource, hosting five blogs, including John Gibson’s Japanese Baseball Daily blog, Michael Westbay’s Bayside West, and Christopher Amano-Langtree’s Tiger Tails.
• Daily Yomiuri writer Jim Allen’s work is archived on JapaneseBaseball.com as well, which is great because the Yomiuri’s website leaves a lot to be desired.
• Deanna may have relocated from Japan, but that hasn’t dampened her enthusiasm for Tokyo Big6 college baseball. The blogging has gone on.
• Steve Novosel’s Chiba Lotte blog welovemarines.com has awoken from a long winter slumber.
• The Kokoyakyu Blog publishes a Yakyu Baka level of information on Japanese high school baseball.
• NPB Card Guy has a knack for finding an interesting baseball card to post every week.
• Yakult is a popular team among English bloggers, with the tenured Tsubamegun and the newcomer Tokyo Yakult Swallows Etc.
• I know of a couple of good Korean baseball sites: mykbo.net and True Stories of Korean Baseball.
• In addition to my work here, I write for Fangraphs and Rotowire.
• Hablo Espanol? Check out Beisbol Japones, a Spanish-language NPB site.
• Yakult Swallows import righty Tony Barnette has a weekly blog.

The Twitterverse

• Ken and I are both on Twitter.
• Jason Coskrey of the Japan Times is one of my favorite guys to exchange banter with during games on Twitter.
• Former Softbank Hawk CJ Nitkowski is another.
• Jim Allen has joined the Twitter revolution.
• Current Yokohama BayStar Clayton Hamilton is tweeting his NPB experiences.
• So is Bryan Bullington.
• And current Fresno Grizzly Marc Kroon.
• Mykbo.net has a Twitter presence as well.
• As does Tsubamegun, @tokyoswallows.

Did I leave anyone out? It certainly wasn’t intentional — feel free to add to this list in the comments.

Yu Darvish is in the midst of a dominant stretch. Over his last four starts, he hasn’t allowed a run, and has pitched every inning except one for a 35-inning scoreless streak.

Here’s what he had to say following his most recent shutout, against Hanshin on Tuesday, translated by Adam.

“I didn’t really think about it (pitching for the team’s fourth consecutive shutout win), I just focused on the batters one at a time and wanted to keep them down until my team mates scored some runs. Hanshin has some great hitters, so I’m glad I was able to pitch carefully.” Darvish continued, saying that his seventh consecutive victory is, “thanks to my teammates’ defense, their hitting, and the support of the fans. I’m incredibly thankful.” He credited catcher Shota Ono with his 35 inning streak of no runs allowed. “I owe it to Ono.”