Over the past decade, a subtle change has taken place within Nippon Professional Baseball, and it has to do with the strike zone, and the way the two leagues’ pitchers attack opposing batters.
Much has been made about the Pacific League’s superior velocity, and while the average velocity has generally been a little higher in the PL, it is certainly true that PL hitters see more four-seam fastballs than those in the CL as well as more splitters, and more balls in the zone.
Starting in 2018, the Pacific League and Central League switched places, with PL pitchers more likely to challenge batters in the zone, and CL hurlers more likely to try and get batters to chase out of the zone.
Why this happened is a matter of speculation, but I will offer a potential explanation for this. It’s a story that starts with the Yomiuri Giants, and a discovery that helped Tomoyuki Sugano dominate the league for a few years.
I’m back from a week’s vacation in the States, and on a holiday Thursday afternoon in Japan, we came within one out of a five-pitcher, two-catcher combined no-hitter and had a three walk-off wins, including two on home runs.
Meanwhile, the BayStars’ slide into the dark side makes me think it’s time we give them a more fitting name. In the old days, before nicknames became brands and became etched in stone, American teams drew inspiration from events and personalities.
An old-fashioned name for DeNA
Take the Los Angeles Dodgers. Their name was ostensibly taken from fans dodging streetcars to get into Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. Before that, the franchise was known for a time in the 19th Century as the “Bridegrooms,” after several players were married and later the Robins, in honor of manager Wilbert “Uncle Robbie” Robinson.
Pittsburgh’s current club, meanwhile, got its nickname from “pirating” a player — signing second baseman Louis Bierbauer in violation of an agreement to not take in players who belonged to other major league clubs before they competed in the Players League in 1890.
Because of its strenuous white washing of the ugly truths surrounding the pitcher it signed that the Dodgers are paying more than $40 million this year not to wear their uniform, and whom 29 other MLB teams declined to sign for MLB’s minimum wage, we should revive that tradition for DeNA.
Any ideas? For the time being, the Whitewashers will do…although I’m open to suggestions. It wouldn’t hurt to come up with fitting nicknames for all 12 teams while we’re at it, but I’ll leave that to you dear readers for now.
Thursday’s games
Fighters 1, Lions 0: At Seibu Dome, converted reliever Koki Kitayama (1-1) walked two batters over six innings, and Nippon Ham came within an out of a combined no-hitter, but had to settle for a shutout as reliever Seigi Tanaka, the Fighters’ fifth pitcher, surrendered back-to-back two-out singles before locking down the win with his third strikeout and recording his third save.
Wataru Matsumoto (2-2) allowed a run on six hits but no walks over seven innings. He surrendered the lead in the seventh on Chusei Mannami’s fifth home run.
Tanaka struck out two pinch-hitters to open the ninth Takumi Kuriyama swinging and Takeya Nakamura looking before Aito Takeda, who made a big catch in the first inning, flipped the script with a hit.
Aito Takeda’s catch.
A Shohei Suzuki single put the tying run at second but with the holiday crowd going nuts, Tanaka struck out Shuta Tonosaki to end it.
