NPB Tracker

The new, home run-supressing NPB ball has brought a Japan-wide “year of the pitcher”. Five NPB’s 12 teams have team ERAs under 3.00, led by Nippon Ham’s amazing 2.02 mark. But the thing that’s jumped out at me is number of guys with unbelievable K:BB ratios. Check these out:

• (pitcher – K:BB, IP)
• Yu Darvish – 106:10, 92 IP
• Masahiro Tanaka – 96:7, 91.1 IP
• Yoshihisa Naruse – 81:6, 83 IP
• Masaru Takeda – 45:3, 74 IP
• Yoshihisa Hirano – 42:2, 32.1 IP
• Dennis Sarfate – 40:4, 26.2 IP
• Takuya Asao – 29:2, 29 IP

Those are just the guys with ratios of 10:1 or better. There are number of others with ratios in the 4:1 or 5:1 range.

So what’s going on here? These guys were all very good already, but they didn’t all take this type of step forward at once. My guess is that the new ball has enabled pitchers to attack the strike zone more aggressively, with less fear of surrendering a home run. That’s just an untested theory at this point though.

With NPB off until Friday, it’s a good time to refresh the Bullet Points series.

• NPB has decided not to pursue changes to the Posting System, according to a June 13 Sanspo report. Difficulty in changing the system on the MLB side and the possibility of collecting large posting fees were cited as the reasons behind the support for the current system.
• Yakult has added Brazilian Rafael Fernandez to its 70-man shihaikai roster, an upgrade from the ikusei roster. Fernandez was selected in the ikusei draft back in 2008, and has a 1.97 ERA in eight games at ni-gun this season.
• Hanshin did the same with Venezuelan lefty Robert Zarate. Zarate was signed out of the independent Baseball Challenge League last offseason.
• Norihiro Nakamura is back, this time with the Yokohama BayStars. Nori hit the first home run of his return on the 18th against Softbank.
• The Chiba Lotte Marines have come to an agreement to acquire infielder Jose Castillo, who was with Yokohama last year. Castillo had been tearing up the Mexican League, and I figure he’ll play LF or DH in Chiba.
• The Braves and Twins had scouts at Yu Darvish’s June 15 start, where he was shockingly defeated by Hanshin. Atlanta’s always chatty Hiroyuki Ohya had this to say: “It felt like he was pressing with this fastball. He has less break on his slider than he did two years ago. He can do better than this.”
• Yakult is set to sell a cocktail “produced” by slugger Wladimir Balentien. The drink will be based on Curacao, a liqueur from Coco’s homeland in the Netherlands Antilles.
• Agent Don Nomura has a new client, pitcher Keisuke Imamura, currently of the Kobe 9 Cruise of the Kansai Independent League. According to the Kobe News, Imamura stands at 190 cm (6’3), reaches 148 kmph (92mph) with his fastball, and has a 14.54 K/9IP ratio this season. The Astros, Giants, and Yankees are said to have shown interest.

Summary: These notes are about a game that took place on Tuesday, June 7. Nippon Ham edged Chunichi 1-0 in a great pitcher’s duel.

What a pitching matchup. Yu Darvish was his usual self, striking out 10 with no walks and three hits in another shutout, running his personal scoreless streak to 44 innings. But Wei-Yin Chen managed to keep up with him and pitched a game that would have earned him a “w” under normal circumstances.

Darvish did everything well — he kept everything down, or unhittably high in the zone; got ahead of nearly ever batter; got into only two three-ball counts; surrendered virtually zero hard contact. Catcher Keiji Koyama managed two of Chunichi’s three hits, a single off an early-count fastball, and another off a slider that got a little too much of the plate. The only other Dragons batter to look remotely competent was Kazuhiro Wada, who hit the hardest ball off Darvish, a sharp line drive that Fighters second baseman Kensuke Tanaka made a great jumping play on. Wada also hit an opposite field single to lead off the seventh inning, which after a sacrifice bunt by Takahiro Saeki turned into the only Dragons threat of the evening. But Darvish subverted that minor threat by dominating Ryosuke Hirata, who could only vaguely defend the strike zone, and Masahiko Morino, who struck out on three pitches.

You couldn’t say that Chen matched Darvish pitch for pitch, but he put up a dominant performance in his own way. Chen scattered four hits in an eight-inning compete game, needing only 88 pitches to work through Nippon Ham’s lineup three and a half times. The difference in the game came in the top of the seventh, when Chen surrendered an uncharacteristic walk to Atsunori Inaba, then hung a slider to Sho Nakata on an 0-2 count. Nakata smacked a double off the left field wall, with the ball bouncing far enough from Wada to allow Inaba to score from first. Chen wasn’t rattled though, and with Nakata still on second, mowed down Tomohiro Nioka, Dai Kan Yoh, and Micah Hoffpauir.

Though the results differed by the slimmest of margins, the two pitchers took differing approaches on the mound. Darvish’s arsenal is such that he can feature a couple of different looks. In this game, he featured at the power end of his range, relying on his four-seam, cutter and tailing two-seam/one-seam/shuuto. When Chunichi’s hitters started fouling the hard stuff off, Darvish would go to his slider or curve for a different look.

Chen, by comparison, kept things a lot simpler. He fed Nippon Ham a strict diet of fastballs and sliders, showing great location and keeping nearly everything on the edges of the strike zone. To make an unfair comparison, he lacked Darvish’s velocity and movement, but he worked quickly, threw strikes, and knew what he wanted to do with each hitter. It definitely felt like he was pitching to contact, but it worked as he mostly limited the Fighters to infield pop ups and lazy fly balls.

I don’t really have anything more to say about this game, so I’ll close with this remarkable fact. Darvish’s opening day: seven innings pitched, seven runs, seven earned. Darvish since then: 69 innings pitched, six runs, five earned.

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.

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.” 

Last week, I got a pretty good question Twitter — who would my Japanese national team be today?

It’s a good question, and a nice change of pace from the Darvish questions I frequently get, so I decided to write up a post about it. Coincidentally back when I was teaching English at the now-defuct NOVA, I used to do a lesson like this with my baseball fan students, and it was always a fun one.

I’m picking my team as if they would have to compete at the highest level, so as cool as I think the World Port Tournament is, I’m following the WBC roster rules. In summary, I get a maximum of 28 players, with a minimum of two catchers and 13 pitchers.

Outfield

No reason to deviate from the 2009 WBC starting outfield of Ichiro, Kosuke Fukudome, and Norichika Aoki. For my fourth outfielder I’ll go with the gap power, strike zone judgement, and defensive prowess of Nippon Ham CF Yoshio Itoi.

Infield

There’s one easy call for me in the infield: Hiroyuki Nakajima at shortstop. At second base, I’ll start Tsuyoshi Nishioka, without regard to his current injury.

The corners are a little trickier. At third base, I like Takeya “Okawari-kun” Nakamura’s bat and Eiichi Koyano’s glove, with Takahiro Arai striking a balance between the two. Choices are a bit limited on other side of the diamond, and Sho Nakata might be the best choice by the end of the year, but for now I prefer the contact bat of Seiichi Uchikawa.

This group of four gives me some flexibility. I can play the stronger defensive group with Koyano at third, Arai at first, and Okawari-kun DH’ing, or I can for the better offensive lineup and have Arai at third, Okawari-kun at first, and one of my other candidates batting DH. The presence of Uchikawa gives me the option of playing the hot hand as well.

On the bench, I’ll stash Yasuyuki Kataoka and Munenori Kawasaki, both of whom can pinch run, steal bases, get bunts down and play good defense all over the infield.

Designated Hitters

Nakamura would DH for my team when he’s not playing in the field. Hideki Matsui never participates in these things, but dammit,this is my dream team, so he’s in.

Catchers

Catcher is an easy call. Kenji Johjima starts, Shinnosuke Abe backs up.

Starting Pitchers

The first three starters are easy choices: Yu Darvish, Hisashi Iwakuma and Hiroki Kuroda. The next three are pretty easy too: Masahiro Tanaka, Hideaki Wakui, Kenta Maeda. Hang on, no lefties in there, so I’ll call on Tsuyoshi Wada, Toshiya Sugiuchi, and Masaru Takeda.

That’s nine starters, so some of these guys are are going to relieve. In particular, I like Tanaka as a power arm out of the bullpen, and Takeda as a lefty specialist.

Relief Pitchers

I’m rounding out my 13-man pitching staff with four full-time relievers for my squad: Kyuji Fujikawa, Takuya Asao, Hitoki Iwase and Tetsuya Yamaguchi.

Those last two are kind of risky picks, given Iwase’s struggles in the 2008 Olympics, and the fact that Yamaguchi got lit up for 10 home runs last year. But Iwase is a good pitcher, and I like Yamaguchi’s ability to get lefthanded batters out.

Notable absences

The last name I deleted off my list of candidates was Chihiro Kaneko (ignoring the fact that he’s been out injured all season). It was either him or Koyano, and I went with Koyano for his third base defense and gap bat. Kaneko’s righty starter skillset is already well-represented.

I would love to have another power bat on this team, but the only other guy I really thought about was Shuichi Murata. A few years ago, his inclusion would have been a no-brainer, but I prioritized defense, and his down numbers last season concern me. Nobuhiko Matsunaka would have been a great inclusion, but he is a shadow of his former self.

I gave some consideration to Koji Uehara and Takashi Saito, but they are too injury-prone to displace either Fujikawa or Asao, and too righthanded to bump Iwase or Yamaguchi.

Notes to pass along from the last few days of NPB action.

• Hiroshima pitcher Yuya Fukui posted an emotional win over Yokohama on May 3rd. It was the heralded rookie’s first win since April 20, when his older brother Ryuichi died in a car accident. Ryuichi advised Yuya against signing with Yomiuri when they drafted him in the fourth round out of high school.
• Takafumi Nakamura, who played last year in the Indians organization, is back in Japan with Shinano of the independent BC League. The lanky righty is hoping to advance to NPB.
• According to Nikkan Sports, Yomiuri has passed on moving lefty Adam Bright from the ikusei roster to the regular 70-man roster (shihaika).
• New Orix import Mike Hessman collected his first NPB hit off none other than Yu Darvish, noting that he “had seen him at the Beijing Olympics” and “was glad to get a hit off such a good pitcher.”
• Hanshin sluggers Takashi Toritani, Takahiro Arai and Craig Brazell hit back-to-back-to-back home runs on May 4th, recalling the fabled 1985 san renpatsu (three consecutive blasts) starring Randy Bass, Masayuki Kakefu, and Akinobu Okada. I couldn’t find video of this week’s renpatsu, so here’s the 1985 version.
• Wladimir Balentien is off to a hot start in Japan: .387/.487/.885 slash line, nine home runs 61 at bats, and 13 walks against 12 strikeouts.

Summary: Nippon Ham wins 6-3 in 10 innings.

Yesterday, the old saying held true: it ain’t over ’til it’s over. I went to bed after the eighth inning of the Nippon Ham-Orix game. Having watched Yu Darvish and Hiroshi Kisanuki battle to 3-1 Fighters lead, I figured it was a safe bet that Orix wouldn’t make a comeback, considering that they had only managed two hits over the first eight innings.

I would have lost that bet. With two on and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Mike Hessman came up as a pinch hitter and singled on the first pitch he saw, scoring Makoto Moriyama from second and advancing Shingo Nonaka from first to third. Aarom Baldiris followed up with another single, tying the game at 3-3.

After catcher Fumihito Suzuki ended the Orix rally with a flyout, relief ace Mamoru Kishida opened the 10th with two quick strikeouts, before walking Eiichi Koyano. Atsunori Inaba reached on a Baldiris error, then Kazuya Murata singled, setting up a bases loaded situation for Sho Nakata, who cleared ’em with a triple. 6-3, Nippon Ham.

Orix went down in order in bottom of the 10th, and that’s how it ended.

That was what I missed. What I saw was a pretty good pitching matchup between Kisanuki and Darvish. Kisanuki had the Fighters’ number the first two trips through the lineup, limiting them to three hits and no runs. All the damage came in the seventh, when he clearly looked fatigued, but was was to some extent let down by a couple of unfortunate plays in the field.

The first was came against Inaba, who opened the inning with a bouncer down the first base line. Seung-Yeop Lee casually jogged over to it, veering into foul territory, snagged the ball, and stepped on first. Foul ball.  It seemed harmless enough, but he looked like it would have been an easy out had he kept his feet in fair territory. A few pitches later, Inaba scored Ham’s first run with a solo home run.

The second came after Yoshihisa Hirano came in to relieve Kisanuki. With two outs and a runner on second, Hirano induced a soft fly to right-center from Kensuke Tanaka. It looked like an easy out off the bat, but Orix’s outfield had Tanaka played so shallow it went for a run-scoring double that gave Nippon Ham a 3-1 lead.

Darvish was his usual self, which is to say he was quite a bit different from his last appearance, against Softbank a week ago. Darvish used his “slow” delivery this week, the one where he pauses at the top of his kick. Contrast that to last week, when he pitched with somewhat of an abbreviated delivery and was a bit quicker to the plate.

Darvish also went with a slightly different arsenal against Orix. Most of his breaking stuff was of the downward-breaking variety, curveballs, forkballs, changeups and softer, downward-breaking sliders, as opposed to the primarily fastball/horizontal slider repertoire he attacked Softbank with last week. A bit surprising was that Darvish just wasn’t getting strikes called on fastballs off the outside corner. There were a couple of borderline calls that would have resulted in strikeouts had they gone his way.

After the first three innings, I seriously thought Darvish had a chance to no-hit the Buffaloes’ listless offense. As it turned out, he held them to two hits through the first eight innings, allowing only two hard-hit balls, one of them a long foul by T-Okada. Orix did of course have that rally in the ninth, which seems to be the trend with them — no offense the first two times through the order, then a late threat. Perhaps their advance scouting and game preparation has yet to come together.

• Yu Darvish recorded his 1000th career strikeout on the 26th, picking up the win over Softbank. Darvish reached the milestone in 1058.2 innings pitched, the seventh fastest pace in NPB history.
• Darvish didn’t have the top game of the night though, as Hisashi Iwakuma struck out 13 Seibu Lions, going the distance for a 147 pitch shutout.
• Veteran Hanshin slugger Tomoaki Kanemoto became the oldest player to steal a base in NPB history, when he swiped second in the eight in against Hiroshima on the 27. “Aniki” is 43 years and 23 days old.
• Yokohama is bringing back lefty Stephen Randolph. Randolph worked out for the BayStars following the placement of Brent Leach on the restricted list.\
• Daily Sports reports that Brian Bannister has informed the Yomiuri Giants that he has no plans to pitch in the US or Japan this season.
• Television ratings for Yuki Saito’s pro debut on the 17th peaked at 29.4% of Hokkaido homes, the highest ever for a regular season Nippon Ham Fighters game.
• Now on sale at the Lotteria in Chiba’s QVC Marine Field: Saburo Burgers.

Last night, thanks to some justin.tv channel surfing I was able to catch bits and pieces of three NPB games, and I’m catching up on Yu Darvish’s start against Orix as I write this. Here are a few things I noticed.

Seibu vs Lotte

• Crowds were sparse at all the games I watched. Yokohama appeared to draw the best audience for their game against Hiroshima.
• Takashi Ogino is a threat to steal every time he reaches first with second base open. I’d like to see him dig in and go after third as well.
• Hideaki Wakui’s fastball velocity was in the 142 kmph range, which is a little bit sub-optimal for him. Lotte seemed to get better looks at him after the first time through the lineup.
• Yoshihisa Naruse, on the other hand, was pretty much vintage in shutting out the Lions. He only K’d six, but he made few mistake pitches and induced a large quantity of pop up outs.
• The defensive play of the game was rookie Shogo Akiyama’s jumping catch at the wall, on Saburo’s long fly ball to right field. I had always perceived Saburo as being vulnerable to hard pitches away, but the pitch he hit was a fastball over the outside corner, and he drove it the other way. Maybe Saburo has refined his approach, or maybe Wakui’s velocity wasn’t enough to make that pitch effective.
• Akiyama’s bat is still way behind his glove. He struck out in his only two at-bats, the first time on three pitches.
• Tadahito Iguchi has really filled out. He and Tae Kyun Kim have got to be the portliest right side of any infield in Japan.
• Seibu infielder Hideto Asamura again looked extremely confident at the plate. He wound up going 1-3 with a double.

Chunichi vs Yakult

• Yahoo had identified Kazuki Yoshimi as Chunichi’s starter, but it was actually Kenichi Nakata that took the hill.
• Joel Guzman looked absolutely terrible against Masanori Ishikawa, and finished 0-4 with three strikeouts. NPB pitchers, take note –  Guzman should not see anything other than breaking balls out of the zone until he proves he can lay off them.
• Kazuhiro Hatakeyama has stepped in to Yakult’s lineup with Josh Whitesell temporarily sidelined. He’s responded by going 5-8 with three home runs in the two games he started.
• Despite his offspeed woes, Wladimir Balentien made contact with a couple of breaking pitches yesterday. Yes, they were groundouts, but there may be hope for him.
• As noted by Jason Coskrey, it got darker at Jingu Stadium as the game progressed. Jason tweeted that NPB would consider using stadium lights for safety purposes during the night game ban.