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NPB news: Aug. 22, 2023

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Gregory “El Coffee” Polanco had a night Carter Stewart Jr. would not like to repeat on Tuesday in Japanese pro baseball, while Jacob Waguespack gave Orix a reason to keep letting him start games, and Shota Imanaga continued to get hammered early.

Marines 5, Hawks 3: At Chiba Marine Stadium, Gregory Polanco’s 16 home run, a two-run shot in the first on a hanging curve, put Lotte on top against Carter Stewart Jr. (2-4), before the Hawks tied it on Ryoya Kurihara’s two-run homer in the second off C.C. Mercedes (4-6). Shogo Nakamura’s 10th homer, in the third, made it 3-2, and though Stewart worked around a pair of two-out walks, a leadoff walk in the fifth and Nakamura’s third hit set up a Polanco RBI double and a Mike Brosseau sac fly that sealed the win.

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The man who would be GM

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In March 2020, just as Japanese baseball was grinding through its preseason behind closed doors, trying to stay a step ahead of the coronavirus pandemic, former National League All-Star reliever Takashi Saito was entering his first season as a pitching coach, a job he said he only took because new Swallows skipper Shingo Takatsu begged him.

“It was hard, because I had never prepared for it,” Saito, now in his second season as DeNA pitching coach. “I never intended to coach.”

At the start of the 2020 season, Saito would be the one to go to the mound and talk to pitchers during innings, but by mid-season that role was assumed by Hirotoshi Ishii, who had schooled Saito in the coaches’ duties since he took the job. He lasted one year with Yakult.

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