Roki Sasaki pitched well but not well enough to overcome one of Sunday’s pitching Hiros, Hanshin’s Hiroto Saiki, while a pitcher was a batting star and batted in the No. 8 slot, although probably for the wrong reason. It was a good day to be a Hiro, with Saiki, Hiroto Takahashi and Hiroya Miyagi combining for 25 scoreless innings.

I went over to Jingu before the game to talk to Cy Sneed for the podcast and do some other work on another story, and in the process heard a couple of interesting things.

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A new issue for the WBC

At Jingu, I talked with lefty Keiji Takahashi, who hasn’t pitched since May 5, and he said he had little trouble getting over WBC fatigue but has a different kind of issue.

“I think I’m OK now, but I was pretty bad there for a while,” he said. “I hadn’t thrown our (NPB) ball for months, and my finger has been catching on the seams, it messed everything up and I was getting blisters, too.”