It might be recency bias, but the DeNA BayStars’ situation after dropping two games at home last weekend sure made it look like they were worse off than they had been seven years ago, when they started 3-0 to the Hawks.

Instead, SoftBank’s Carter Stewart Jr. came out tight and allowed just one run over four innings thanks to some timely strikeouts and excellent defense behind him. Because he couldn’t go deeper in the game, DeNA got to score three runs against the Hawks’ bullpen.

“I’m going to have that experience for the rest of my life,” said Stewart, whose parents and girlfriend were visiting for the series. “I went home, still had a great time seeing my family.”

Monday was an off day while the Japan Series moved to Fukuoka, but there were two news items worth mentioning, NPB’s expected difficulty in adjusting its rules to meet players’ demands, and the Sawamura Award announcement.

Both the owners and the Sawamura committee are faced with a conundrum. Owners want people to think they care about the players’ legitimate demands, when they don’t give a rat’s ass.

On the other hand, the ace pitchers who make up the Sawmura committee want to express sympathy with the plight of starting pitchers in an era when pitch counts and deep bullpens have changed the job, without stating the obvious, that today’s pitchers have it much harder than they did.

Owners do the free agency run around

On Monday, the players union and NPB’s player relations committee, headed by Hiroshima Carp executive Kiyomi Suzuki met in a working group session over the issue of the players’ demand to reduce the service time needed to file for free agency.

“We have had 24 meetings but have been unable to reach an agreement on ways to relaxt the rules,” Suzuki said.

On Dec. 7, union chairman Tsubasa Aizawa said the existing system limits the way changes can be made and suggested this year that a petition to Japan’s Fair Trade Commission was a possibility, claiming that the rules, imposed by NPB 30 years ago, violate the antimonopoly act.