DeNA BayStars manager Daisuke Miura appears ready for Kazuki Mishima to continue to serve as the team’s closer after taking over last season from Yasuaki Yamasaki, Hochi Shimbun reported Thursday.
“We’ll see how things go. I’ve been getting reports. If his form suddenly improves, things may change,” Miura said of Yamasaki, who has been pitching in instructional league games this month.
Takinaka snags’ Eagles 6th rotation spot
Right-hander Ryota Takinaka has been named the Rakuten Eagles’ sixth starter, according to Nikkan Sports.
“I think he’ll pitch in the order we’ve used in the preseason,” manager Kazuhisa Ishii said.
That would set up the 26-year-old, a sixth-round pick in 2019, to start against the Lotte Marines on April 1. The Eagles are set to open the season on March 26 with Hideaki Wakui, followed by Masahiro Tanaka and rookie Takahisa Hayakawa. Takayuki Kishi and Takahiro Norimoto will then go against the Marines on the last two days of March.
On Thursday, Takinaka allowed two runs over six innings in a 7-2 win over the Orix Buffaloes. Sung Chia-hao, Alan Busenitz and closer Yuki Matsui wrapped up with a scoreless inning each, while the Eagles touched right-hander Chang Yi for four runs over five innings.
Cron makes good impression
Nobody really cares what players do in practice, unless there’s a worm involved and Rex Hudler is there to eat it at the urging of former White Sox reliever Shingo Takatsu I suppose.
Still, Kevin Cron earned his share of Brownie points with the Hiroshima Carp coaching staff by turning up at an optional practice on Thursday in Hiroshima. On a slow news day with only one preseason game, this was perhaps the biggest news of the day.
Cron, has hit .091 in 22 preseason at-bats, and Sponichi Annex reported head coach Yusuke Kawada’s response to the new import’s effort.
“We told him it was OK to take the day off, but he came on his own,” Kawada said. “He could have gone home after taking BP, but he took fielding practice.”
“He’s just giving his all, but you really never about imports until Opening Day comes.”
“He is working so hard that you feel like he’s shouting, ‘Look at me God.'”
Should Cron succeed, the papers will repeat this story of his being a “serious imported player” until we’re all sick of it. If he fails, it will be forgotten.
The Lotte Marines had enough trouble on Tuesday without having to face Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who allowed two hits and two walks over eight innings to improve to 8-3 in the Orix Buffaloes’ 3-0 win at Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium.
The Marines played the game after the local health authorities told them it would not be necessary to call it off despite the club having become an official coronavirus cluster with two positive tests on Sunday and 11 more on Tuesday – when the test results were announced a day later than expected.
Yamamoto struck out nine, and closer Brandon Dickson picked up the pace with two strikeouts in the ninth to secure his 12th save in a game played like no one wanted to stick around the ballpark any longer than they had to. The game wrapped up in 2 hours 27 minutes.
Ayumu Ishikawa, the Marines’ Opening Day starter, allowed all three runs over seven innings to fall to 7-4.
Takahashi outduels Senga
Reliever Kaima Taira got Lions starter Kona Takahashi (6-8) out of a seventh-inning jam with a double play as the Seibu Lions got past SoftBank Hawks ace Kodai Senga in a 3-1 win at MetLife Dome.
Senga (7-6) walked a career-high seven batters but still kept it close, allowing just one run over six innings in a 142-pitch effort.
Takahashi struck out eight, hit a batter and walked one while allowing two hits over 6-1/3 innings.
Tomoya Mori drove in all three Lions runs with a fifth-inning sacrifice fly and a two-run eighth-inning triple. Lions closer Tatsushi Masuda allowed a run in the ninth but notched his 24th save.
Fighters pluck win from Norimoto
Taishi Ota’s 11th home run of the year brought the Nippon Ham Fighters from behind against Rakuten Eagles’ ace Takahiro Norimoto (5-5) in a 5-3 win at Sapporo Dome.
Naoyuki Uwasawa (8-4) allowed three runs, one earned, over 6-1/3 innings to earn the win.
Sugano earns 100th career win
Tomoyuki Sugano improved to 13-0 thanks to some solid run support to earn his 100th career victory in the Yomiuri Giants’ 6-4 win over the DeNA BayStars at Tokyo Dome.
Yoshihiro Maru broke a 1-1 tie with a third-inning home run off rookie Yuya Sakamoto (3-1) who took his first career loss. Sugano had a fourth-inning hiccup when some poor pitches led to a two-run Jose Lopez homer. Zelous Wheeler canceled that out in the fifth with a two-run shot off former BayStars closer Yasuaki Yamasaki. Tyler Austin went deep off lefty Kota Nakagawa in the eighth for his 14th home run.
The Giants ace allowed three runs over seven innings on four hits, two walks and a hit batsman. Rubby De La Rosa worked the ninth for his 15th save.
Akiyoshi Katsuno (3-4) worked 7-2/3 innings against a depleted Yakult Swallows lineup squad and their scheduled starting pitcher in the Chunichi Dragons’ 4-0 win at Nagoya Dome.
Announced Swallows starter Yasuhiro Ogawa was scratched after developing a fever. Out of concern of a possible coronavirus infection, the Swallows also kept star second baseman Tetsuto Yamada, shortstop Naomichi Nishiura and closer Taichi Ishiyama off the game roster. Ogawa tested negative, and the other three players are expected to play from Wednesday.
In Ogawa’s absence, the Swallows turned to rookie Takuma Kubo (0-1), who allowed all four runs in the second inning to earn his first career loss in his first career start. Katsuno allowed five hits, a walk, and hit a batter while striking out six.
Tigers, Carp draw
Hanshin Tigers closer Robert Suarez allowed the tying run to score in the bottom of the 10th but got out of the inning with the potential winning run on base in a 4-4 10-inning tie with the Hiroshima Carp at Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium.
Marines getting presidential
Perhaps the Lotte Marines’ home park should be known as the White House, where Wednesday’s game against the Orix Buffaloes went ahead after the local health authorities — perhaps following Donald Trump’s advice that we shouldn’t fear the virus– said there was no reason to cancel.
After over a day of waiting for test results that should have been known Monday after a game that shouldn’t have been played Sunday, the Lotte Marines announced Tuesday afternoon that seven players and four members of the team staff have now tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officially making the Marines Japan’s first pro sports body in Japan to become an infection cluster.
In addition to them, four others have been determined to have been in close contact with pitcher Daiki Iwashita, who fell ill on Saturday and returned a positive test on Sunday, the same day the team hosted the Seibu Lions. The four were seated near him on the team’s flight on Friday from Chitose Airport to Haneda Airport.
At the same time, the Marines announced that their Eastern League farm game against the DeNA BayStars’ minor leaguers had been called off, ostensibly because much of the farm team will be needed to replace the first team on the active roster. Wednesday’s game has also been scratched.
The infected and those in close contact have made 1,167 plate appearances this season, slightly more than one third of the team’s total and have accounted for 129-1/3 innings pitched of the team’s 811 this season.
On Sunday, the Marines tested everyone connected to the first team, but Monday and came and the club shrugged its shoulders and said, “Sorry. We haven’t heard anything.”
Iwashita fell ill after he returned from the team’s roadtrip to Sapporo, where he allowed two runs over six innings in his start.
One first-team staff member, who was not deemed to have been in close contact with Iwashita, also tested positive on Sunday.
On Sept. 25, the Hanshin Tigers called up nine players from their farm team to replace four who tested positive and five others who had been in close contact with them. The following day, the Tigers were only able to suit up 17 minor leaguers for their Western League farm game.
Who’s sick
P Daiki Iwashita
OF Takashi Ogino
OF Katsuya Kakunaka
OF Ikuhiro Kiyota
OF Tsuyoshi Sugano
IF Takeshi Toritani
SS Yutai Fujioka
IF Ryo Miki
Assistant coach Shota Ishimine
Four members of 1st team staff
Who’s been in contact
P Yusuke Azuma
P Fumiya Ono
OF Koshiro Wada
P Daiki Yamamoto
Swallows’ Ogawa held back due to fever
The Yakult Swallows pulled scheduled starter Yasuhiro Ogawa from Tuesday’s game against the Chunichi Dragons after the 30-year-old right-hander developed a 37.3 C fever. He was ordered to rest at the team’s hotel in Nagoya.
The Swallows opted to pull infielders Tetsuto Yamada and Naomichi Nishiura and closer Taichi Ishiyama from the game roster for Tuesday’s game game pending the result of a test on Ogawa.
Ramirez rumors starting again: Sponichi
Sports Nippon Annex reported Tuesday that the DeNA BayStars are considering replacing manager Alex Ramirez with minor league manager and former ace pitcher Daisuke Miura.
There appears nothing more concrete to this story than there was six weeks ago when some pundits picked apart Ramirez’s work and pointing out his unorthodox decisions, in an effort to promote the candidacy of someone else–hopefully someone who could then gift them coaching jobs with the team.
The team’s owner, Tomoko Namba, has indicated the team’s mission is to win, and a former DeNA international employee has said the pressure within the organization to do so–despite a limited talent base–is extreme and has turned the BayStars’ front office into a pressure cooker.
Active roster moves 10/6/2020
Deactivated players can be re-activated from 10/16
