Tag Archives: Dayan Viciedo

NPB news: Sept. 17, 2022

It’s Saturday and was a rare night out with the missus, did some dancing, and said hi to some friends. It was fun, but full disclosure: It meant missing almost all of the games, so I won’t be able to report on anything I saw through careful observation of whole games because for the most part I didn’t.

There was some fun stuff, however, and

Yoshinobu Yamamoto stood in the way of the Hawks lowering their magic number, while the Chunichi Dragons are once more playing the role of the troll under the bridge the Yakult Swallows need to cross. The DeNA BayStars, meanwhile, were playing THEIR kryptonite team, the Hiroshima Carp.

The Rakuten Eagles sent Masahiro Tanaka to the mound with a chance to put Rakuten into third place, while the Hansin Tigers sent Yuki Nishi against the Yomiuri Giants’ Shosei Togo in their battle for the CL’s third-place spot in a game decided by home runs.

Elsewhere, a full crowd nearly brought one Fighters player to tears, while Chunichi skipper Kazuyoshi Tatsunami spills on Munetaka Murakami‘s failures.

Pitching metrics

The last two weeks I’ve been analyzing pitches, with batters’ runs created per pitch a key measure. I’m sticking with runs created per pitch but have switched to a fielding-independent model, that prevents the anomaly of Manabu Mima’s 85 mph fastball getting the highest rating of any starting pitcher’s fastball in Japan. It doesn’t miss many bats, doesn’t get called for strikes an unusual amount and is not hard to put in play, but when it has been put in play, very few have failed to find gloves this season.

With this new tweak, Hanshin reliever Atsuki Yuasa’s heater ranks as the most effective pitch thrown 400 or more times this season through Saturday, with batters creating .0113 runs per pitch he throws, to edge out Roki Sasaki’s .0117.

Let’s get to the games, shall we?

Buffaloes 2, Hawks 0: At Osaka Dome, Yamamoto (14-5) won a pitchers’ duel with Yugo Bando (2-3), with both starters allowing four hits over the distance. Yamamoto allowed four singles and a walk over nine while striking out seven. Bando Keita Nakagawa’s first-inning home run and walked three, two of which allowed Orix to load the bases in the third and score an insurance run on a Yuma Tongu sac fly.

Continue reading NPB news: Sept. 17, 2022

NPB news: Sept. 16, 2022

We entered the weekend with the Central League-leading Yakult Swallows having a magic number of 10 and Munetaka Murakami on fire as they went into their game against the Chunichi Dragons, who have won 12 of their first 21 games.

In the Pacific League, the SoftBank Hawks are in a similar position, with Yuki Yanagita on fire, and having won five straight.

The games:

Hawks 7, Eagles 3: At Miyagi Stadium, Yuki Yanagita hit a three-run first-inning home run off Hideaki Wakui (4-2) his 20th of the season and his second in two days. Former closer Yuito Mori worked three innings and allowed a solo homer to Rakuten catcher Hikaru Ota in the third. Daichi Suzuki made it a one-run game in the fourth when he doubled in Hideto Asamura off Keisuke Izumi.

Continue reading NPB news: Sept. 16, 2022