NPB Bullet Points: Last Week’s Pitching
I had a nice set of links built up, but it looks like most of them got lost in the Internet somewhere. Here’s what’s left:
- Yokohama pitcher Yota Kosugi took his first career win in his third career start on the 11th. That in itself isn’t particularly interesting, but Kosugi’s route to NPB kind of is. Kosugi dropped out of Asia University in his second year, and took a job making 750 yen/hour at a Freshness Burger restaurant in Harajuku. He continued to work out at his old high school, and got into the industrial leagues with JR Higashi Nihon, which eventually led to Yokohama. Kosugi’s story resembles that of teammate Yo Sugihara, who worked at a DoCoMo cell phone shop in Osaka after being cut loose by Lotte. As a final note, I think that Freshness Burger is easily the best hamburger chain in Japan, with apologies to Mos Burger.
- Yu Darvish has set a new career high for losses on the 13th, with six. Six. In each of his five previous seasons, Darvish had lost exactly five games, except in 2008 when he lost four. Darvish is now 73-30 for his six-year career.
- Toshiya Sugiuchi threw at 12-K gem over the weekend. Here it is on justin.tv: part one, part two.
Lastly, I came across this phenomenal blog post about minor league life by Mike Ashmore, who covers the double-a Trenton Thunder.