No need to touch rule book in Japan

Last night’s game between the Yakult Swallows and Chunichi Dragons featured NPB’s laughable interpretation of how to record an out at home plate — where a catcher can tag a runner out without even bothering to tag him.

In a scoreless game at Nagoya Dome between the Central League’s top-two clubs, the Swallows’ Shingo Kawabata tried to score on a single to right by Kazuhiro Hatakeyama, but a super throw from Dragons right fielder Atsushi Fujii arrived at the plate on a hop just barely ahead of the runner. Dragons catcher Masato Matsui waited for the throw a few feet from home up the third-base line and was obstructing home plate (illegal but permitted).

Kawabata slid into Matsui, who then caught the ball and juggled it. Meanwhile Kawabata’s momentum took him behind the catcher. The catcher, who never attempted to tag the runner, simply held the ball up for umpire Kazuhiro Kobayashi singled for the out on a tag play — or “touch” in Japanese — without a tag being attempted. This, too, is a violation of the rules in Japan but common practice.

The proper call would have been none, as Kawabata knowing he was out, but perhaps only knowing the rule book as well as Kobayashi, never bothered to touch home plate.

NPBreddit , found this video of the play.

A photo of the play’s finish can be found here.

Here‘s another play of the fairly common technique of catchers saving their energy by not tagging the runner.

 

Slipping through the cracks

As Dragons fans were reminded tonight, Nobumasa Fukuda is a pretty decent hitter. The 26-year-old right-handed-hitting first baseman hit his fourth homer of the season for Chunichi tonight and the question is not when he became good? but rather, at what point did we forget that he was good?

Fukuda’s been playing regularly in the Western League since 2009, and he MUST have appeared somewhere in annual scans of minor league hitters with outstanding results, but somehow he fell off the radar — his results have been consistently good although his OBP had been pedestrian until last year when he drew 34 walks in 334 plate appearances. He had a bad year in 2013 and that might have made it easier to overlook him. He’s not really young any more and he’s a first baseman.

But that being said, the Western League is a tough league to post gaudy batting numbers in and he’s been overshadowed by a barrel full of young Hawks guys who can hammer it, but Fukuda can play.

An injury to Masahiko Morino, one of Chunichi’s better players, and the Dragons are an improved team. Funny how things turn out.