I’m back after a short break to take care of some other work that needed to be taken care of. It’s not like I’ve gone anywhere but when the most interesting thing I saw in the first 10 days of camp was a pitcher discovering a cat had taken a dump on the bullpen mound he was using, well, it was not that compelling.
On Sunday, Livan Moinelo threw his first bullpen of the spring, the Chunichi Dragons media was particularly revved up about Sho Nakata, which is not a good sign, and batters getting hit with pitches seems to be a thing.
Moinelo throws 87 pitches
Livan Moinelo, who had an unspecified procedure in July that was expected to keep him out of action for three months, threw his first bullpen of the spring Sunday, heaving 87 pitches under the supervision of new manager Hiroki Kokubo and pitching coach Shinji Kurano in Miyazaki.
The 27-year-old Moinelo expressed hope of moving into the starting rotation this season, although Kokubo has reserved his decision on that.
East meets west and batters should look out
A batter for Sacramento State on Saturday was hit seven times by pitches in a doubleheader against Loyola Marymount, while the same day in Japan, pitchers from KBO’s Samsung Lions hit seven Nippon Ham Fighters with pitches.
Asked what he took away from the game, manager Tsuyoshi Shinjo, who has been almost historically understated this year, said, “What we learned? I’m not going to talk about that. Getting hit by pitches is scary. Scary.”
“Throughout the game, all I could think of was whether guys getting hit on the fingers were suffering fractures or not. Today’s game taught me that baseball is indeed in the hands of the pitchers.”
it’s not all about Nakata
On Saturday, the news out of the Chunichi Dragons camp was that Akira Neo is not the only one generating excitement in camp, after the former shortstop, former outfielder, and former two-way player threw three perfect innings in a practice game.
The Dragons also want us to know that Hiroto Takahashi is reverting to form. After barely lifting his front leg in his delivery at the start of camp, Takahashi began raising it more on Feb. 16 – the way he threw last year and seems to have regained more feel for his pitches.
The Dragons are also touting a “secret weapon”, 21-year-old Cuban shortstop Christian Rodriguez, in camp on a developmental contract. The team also has 27-year-old Kodai Umetsu, Chunichi’s 2018 second-round pick, who showed impressive flashes last year in his return from Tommy John surgery.
But despite that, camp being camp, the news Sunday was all about Sho Nakata being fit enough to field grounders for the first time in a week as he tries to make a clean start in Nagoya after not establishing himself following his first clean start with Yomiuri following his ignominious exit from Nippon Ham.
And then there’s cat shit
Japan has traditionally preferred softer, sandier mounds in its parks, but the “pitching out of a sandbox” theme cut to close to home in the first week of spring training, when the bullpen at the Yakult Swallows’ Urasoe, Okinawa camp suffered the fate of sandboxes across the country–that in recent decades have forced them to be covered with netting when not in use.
Swallows lefty Keiji Takahashi began his bullpen session he gasped, “what’s that smell?,” and grimaced after his left foot landed next to a patch of shit.
“It was cat shit I think,” said Takahashi, who struggled through most of 2023 after earning a spot on Japan’s WBC roster with one of the country’s best fastballs.
“It was just in front of the rubber. I didn’t step in it. If I had, it might have helped.”
