4/1/2004
4/1/2004
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Team Reports
| Hanshin | |
| 20 game winner Kei Igawa, after a light workout in preparation for
his Opening Day assignment, joked to reporters, "what are you guys getting
so excited about?" It will be Igawa's third straight opener on the hill.
Manager Akinobu Okada said that he just wants Igawa to do what he wants
out there and not get uptight about winning or losing. "I believe in him,"
the former infielder enthused.
Igawa is evenly matched with Giants starter Koji Uehara, against whom he is 2-2. All star second baseman Makoto Imaoka's hand, which he hurt when he was hit by a Brian Sikorsky pitch during an exhibition game with |
Yomiuri, is still smarting a bit, but he will be in the starting
lineup Friday anyway. While batting in the leadoff spot in 2003, Imaoka
hit .366 against the Giants in 23 games. And just for fun, he did even
better against Yokohama, posting a .396. Seven of his 12 homers last year
were in the first inning as well (and five of those were on the first delivery
he saw). The record for a season is eight, held by five players.
The parents of rookie shortstop Takashi Toritani will be at Tokyo Dome Friday to see their son's first regular season pro game. Toritani put on a show during a special evening batting practice session and feels that he is getting used to the advanced pitching at the top level. |
| Chunichi | |
| Manager Hiromitsu Ochiai was reciting all the usual cliches Thursday
as the Dragons get ready for the beginning of the CL pennant race. "You
can't stay at the absolute top of your game forever. So I hope to minimize
the duration of any slumps we might fall into," he remarked.
Shigeki Noguchi threw 50 pitches as a prelude to his Opening Day assignment Thursday. "I'm in really good shape," he told reporters. |
Reliever Eiji Ochiai had his first bullpen session in more than
three weeks Thursday. Ochiai suffered some whiplash after the car he was
in was hit from behind. "It wasn't bad," said the veteran of his 32 pitch
session. Coaches hope to have him back in the fold around the middle of
the month.
Rightfielder Kosuke Fukudome has homered in his two previous openers, but if he does it again, it will set a new club record. |
| Yomiuri | |
| Righthanded ace Koji Uehara will tie a team record Friday at Tokyo
Dome when he starts his fifth straight Opening Dave game, pulling him even
with ex-Giants great Masaaki Saito. In fact, Uehara, who could have been
an Angel or a Met if he hadn't chosen Yomiuri, feels that these duties
are so routine that "I'm not getting pumped up at all." Maybe he should,
since he is 1-3 on Opening Day with an ERA approaching 5.00.
Uehara, while talking to reporters Thursday, remarked that it may
not have been such a good idea to have MLB teams playing at Tokyo Dome
immediately before the CL cracks open the 2004 regular season, especially
since he feels that the big leagues have been
Manager Tsuneo Horiuchi hasn't yet formally announced his Opening Day lineup, but sources within the organization say that Kazuhiro Kiyohara, to almost nobody's surprise, considering how slowly Roberto Petagine has been recovering from surgery, will be the starter at first. The former Seibu slugger is shooting to reach the 2000 hits and 500 homer marks this year. In Opening Day matches, he is 14-48 with five homers and 11 RBIs. Getting back to Petagine, he averred that he doesn't care where he
hits in the order since it is the manager's job to determine that. Instead,
he said, he will focus on putting up some numbers. One
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game starter Hideki Irabu last year.
For third baseman Hiroki Kokubo, this is his first Opening Day in two seasons since going down for all of 2003 with a knee injury he suffered in a home plate collision during an exhibition game. The erstwhile Daiei Hawk is likely to be in the three hole. New outfielder Tuffy Rhodes, though, hasn't been that successful kicking off a season, as he has mustered only a .255, one homer in those tilts. He said that he feels good and that he isn't thinking about Hanshin particularly, but always wants to win. Second baseman Toshihisa Nishi will be back in the leadoff slot for the first time in three years after the last two saw leftfielder Takayuki Shimizu there. But Shimizu lost that designation when he had a hugely disappointing season in the wake of his 2002, when he nearly tied ex-Yokohama second baseman Bobby Rose's 192 CL record of 192 hits. For what's worth former Nankai, Toei and Hanshin pitcher Takenori Emoto, in his regular column for Sankei Sports, while noting their weakness in the pitching department, has picked Yomiuri to win the pennant thanks to their offensive potential, with Hanshin falling to second despite better overall balance. However, former Yakult shortstop Takahiro Ikeyama, also now a Sankei Sports scribe, has picked the Tigers first, the Dragons second and Yomiuri third due to that pitching problem. But Ikeyama also expects that Mike Kinkade, who has looked like a superstar this spring for the Osaka contingent, will see his average fall somewhat after scouts get more of a look at him. |
| Yakult | |
| Manager Tsutomu Wakamatsu cited the Hanshin Tigers as the team to
beat in the circuit Thursday, claiming that they are deeper than the Giants
despite the high priced additions the kyojin took on during the offseason.
He also announced that injured lefthander Masanori Ishikawa will make his first start of the schedule on the ninth against Yomiuri and that the dimunitive screwballer will pitch every sixth day. Opening Day starter Jason Beverlin, the third foreigner to execute that assignment for the birds in team history, took it nice and easy during his Thursday workout and said that while he won't do anything different than he usually does, he is getting more pumped up as the game approaches and is looking forward to it. He will face the Yokohama Bay Stars, against whom he was 4-0 in 2003. 38 year old Catcher Atsuya Furuta needs 164 hits to become just the |
second Swallow to 2000 career hits. In a 140 game season it is going
to be a bear attaining that this year, especially since the former batting
champion's knees are increasingly questionalble. He is currently
suffering from a hamstring pull and says that he is only at about 80% right
now. Thus, a somewhat easier goal for him to reach is 200 homers, which
is 12 away.
Third baseman Akinori Iwamura, who tore it up this spring to a faretheewell, ended his preseason with a post practice haircut at a salon in fashionable Shibuya, Tokyo. His mom Michiyo has also travelled from her native Shikoku to see her son's Opening Day appearance. "If I can hit one out with her watching that would be great," the stocky lefthanded infielder said. Leftfielder Alex Ramirez' hand is still bothering him, but he will
start Friday nonetheless.
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| Hiroshima | |
| Manager Koji Yamamoto believes that his team was displaying significant
progress at the end of the exhibition schedule and thinks his pitching
is in better shape than last season. That is undoubtedly true, but it still
isn't deep enough to put him in the first divsion, let
alone win a pennant. |
Second baseman Greg Larocca will bat third after a solid spring
that saw him bat .324 with three homers and nine RBIs. Shortstop Andy Sheets
will likely bat cleanup, according to Sankei Sports.
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| Yokohama | |
| Third baseman Shinichi Murata said that he wants to go deep against
Yakult Friday. He has abused Swallows starter Jason Beverlin for a .364
average, but has never gone yard against him.
Team leader and ace Daisuke Miura will make the start Friday, the third opener he has worked in his career. The very first one was |
against Yakult in a losing effort.
Closer Kazuhiro Sasaki didn't have much to say on the eve of his
first Japanese regular season game in four years, only that he isn't nervous
about it.
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| Miscellaneous | |
| Two highly sought after hurlers, Meiji University's Yasuhiro Ichiba
and industrial leaguers Shidax' Takahiko Nomaguchi, faced off in a practice
game Thursday at Meiji's homeground in Chofu, Tokyo. Nomaguchi has been
drawing a lot of scrutiny from L.A. as well as from several Japanese teams,
as evidenced by the 17 scouts, including one from the Dodgers and
another employed by the Mets, who were eyeballing this contest. He
appeared in a relief role in the ninth, rendering Meiji hitless in the
one inning of work and striking out one.
Ichiba started for Meiji and went seven innings, ultimately surrendering three runs on five hits and fanning nine, four of those consecutively, as Meiji lost it by a 6-2 margin. Ichiba was clocked at 93mph and Nomaguchi's best heater was 91mph. Another pitching phenom, Tohoku High's Yu Darvish, saw two of his pitches disappear into the great wide open, but he still emerged with a 3-2 victory Wednesday over baseball power Osaka Toin High to bring his squad into the quarterfinals. Former Yomiuri skipper Shigeo Nagashima, still in hospital,
did some more rehab work Thursday before taking in some tv of the spring
Koshien High School Baseball Tournament. Giants sources told Sports Nippon
that Nagashima is gaining more mobility and the
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famer.
Ichiro Suzuki's alma mater, Aikodai Meiden High School, used some sock in the form of two homers to down Akita Shogyo High 7-1 and move into the semi-finals of the spring Koshien High School Baseball Tournament. Ace Takashi Maruyama whiffed 15 to earn credit for the triumph. If you want to learn more about Ichiro and Aikodai, read Bob Whiting's fascinating new book, The Meaning of Ichiro, a long overdue sequel to the seminal You Gotta Have Wa, which gave rise to the Mr. Baseball flick. Suzuki, following up a 3-4 Wednesday with a walk, went 1-2 with a run scored Thursday against San Diego to raise his average to .442. The lone hit was a single off of Jake Peavey. Cardinals outfielder So Taguchi went 0-3 but stole two bases Thursday in an 8-7 victory over Florida. The former Orix leftfielder has reportedly made the Opening Day major league rost Mets shortstop Kazuo Matsui's spring struggles continue, as he went 0-3 Thursday against the Dodgers' Hideo Nomo with a strikeouts. He then singled off of a reliever later in the game. Nomo didn't fare that well, either, as he surrendered four runs on six hits in six innings in L.A.'s 11-5 win. He had thrown five shutout frames before coming apart mechanically and getting lit up in that sixth. Wednesday, Padres reliever Akinori Otsuka was rocked for three runs in an inning on four hits, the first time he had given up a run in two weeks. |