5/20/2004
5/20/2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
Team Reports
| Chunichi | |
| Rightfielder Kosuke Fukudome was given some personal instruction
from manager and three time Triple Crown winner Hiromitsu Ochiai about
his grip. Fukudome may be holding the bat too tight, which chokes bat speed.
Ochiai also lent some advice to centerfielder Alex Ochoa.
Pitcher Martin Vargas has been sent down to the minors and Kenta |
Asakura recalled. Chunichi Sports writes that coaches were going
to move the Dominican hurler into the bullpen, but he would rather start,
and so they demoted him in order that he can do that on the 22nd.
As for Asakura, he has changed his pitching motion to a two stage
delivery.
|
| Yomiuri | ||
| It appears that first baseman Kazuhiro Kiyohara, bad thumb and all,
will start Friday against Hanshin. Lefthander Kei Igawa will be on the
hill for the Tigers.
New addition Mark Corey worked out with the team Thursday and, while fighting jet lag, threw 35 pitches in the bullpen. He had some trouble with the softness of the dirt on the mound and he was leaving pitches up as a result. He will initially start out in the minors, probably on the 25th against Nippon Ham's affiliate. In addition, a Giants coach suggested that Corey needs to work on his slide step.
|
Apparently in hopes of persuading highly sought after industrial
league pitcher Takahiko Nomaguchi to sign with them, the Giants will allow
Nomaguchi's team, Shidax, to practice at their workout facility in Kawasaki,
Kanagawa Prefecture. It is the first time that the Tokyo outfit has permitted
that. Aside from Hanshin, Seibu and Yomiuri, the Dodgers, Mets and at least
three other MLB teams are following Nomaguchi and his 94mph fastball.
Hisanori Takahashi was back int he pen Thursday to check his mechanics.
He probably isn't going to be back with the big club, though, until the
first week of June at the earliest.
|
| Yakult | |
| Leftfielder Alex Ramirez needs two more homers for 100 during his Japanese career. He is considering giving the fan who ends up with the ball a signed batting glove. | Lefthander Hirotoshi Ishii, recovering from an oblique strain, will begin throwing again sometime this weekend. Coaches hope he will be ready by the end of the first week of June. |
| Yokohama | |
| Second baseman Seiichi Uchikawa was cut on the jaw Thursday during
a workout when he ran into a net while catching a fly ball. The
top of the frame apparently broke and wacked Uchikawa, causing the |
bleeding. Uchikawa said he should have been paying better attention
to his surroundings.
|
| Miscellaneous | |
| St. Louis outfielder So Taguchi started for the first time in seven
games and responded to the opportunity Thursday by going 4-4 with a walk
and two RBIs in an 11-4 victory over the New York Mets. Two of the hits
were doubles.
Kazuo Matsui started in that game for New York and went 1-4 with a walk and a run scored. Kazuhisa Ishii started for L.A. Thursday against Philadelphia and absorbed his third loss against five victories after surrendering four runs and seven hits in six plus innings. The Blue Crew lost for the seventh consecutive outing 4-0. Ishii's fellow Dodgers pitcher, Hideo Nomo, will miss his next turn due to a fingernail injury. Tomokazu Ohka received little run support again Thursday for Montreal
against Milwaukee in San Juan and didn't figure in the decision despite
allowing only two runs on four hits in seven innings.
Randy Johnson's perfect game against Atlanta a couple of days ago
According to Chunichi Sports, Padres reliever Akinori Otsuka was
clocked at 96mph Wednesday against Pittsburgh. But is he overworked? He
has appeared in 20 of San Diego's 40 games to date.
Mariners outfielder acommpanied manager Bob Melvin and pitchers Eddie Guardado and Jamie Moyer to a Seattle area elementary school |
Thursday and talked to 300 youngsters about the importance
of staying in school, refraining from using drugs and believing in yourself.
Later that day, with Moyer starting, Ichiro went out and drove in a run with a hot shot off the glove of Baltimore Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro with the bases loaded that the idiot in the official scorer's booth ruled an error and then later changed it to the right call, a single. Then after being buzzed around the head twice by O's reliever John Parrish in the bottom of the seventh, Ichiro picked on another pitch that was up but out over the plate and tomahawked it into the rightfield seats for his second dinger of the campaign to make it 7-0. You have to believe that Ichiro did that intentionally as payback. He then followed that up with a line single to leftcenter to drive in a run and blazed to the plate on a subsequent double in the eighth to finish 3-5 with three RBIs and three runs scored. He has seven multi-hit games in his last eight and has hit in 17 of his last 18. He now needsw two more hits for 2000. The final was 11-0. For those of you in Japan, ESPN's Baseball Tonight had a segment on why Ichiro's .316 was "a soft .316." In the opinion of analyst and former Reds closer Rob Dibble, Ichiro is trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark instead of on the ground. Actually, I don't think that's true. The problem with Ichiro is two fold: one, the opposition infielders have moved a couple of steps on the dirt and have largely taken away those little ground balls that Ichiro used to beat out. Then they are pitching him up in order to get him to pop the ball up and Ichiro has too often obliged. He needs to make pitchers come down in the zone, where he can really handle them. New York Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui unloaded a nine iron into the rocks in leftcenter at Angels Stadium Thursday on a pitch down and middle-in from Bartolo Colon for a two run homer and later added a single to finish 2-4 in a 6-1 Yanks victory. It was his sixth circuit clout of 2004. He is currently batting .279. |
