Roki Sasaki is not currently with the Lotte Marines’ major league club, but the ripples he has caused in Japan’s pro baseball pond have yet to settle.
On Tuesday, we had one more opinion about how Sasaki’s being handled from someone who knows a thing about the pitfalls of failing to protect good pitchers arms, Hall of Famer Hiroshi Gondo, and some more fallout from umpire Kazuyuki Shirai’s mid-game etiquette lesson to Lotte’s young star on Sunday.
Continue reading Something to talk aboutAs some of you know, I was on CNN World Sport Sunday pretty much being a blithering moron while trying to sound intelligent about Roki Sasaki and utterly failing.
Well at least I didn’t get angry about it…
Sunday, of course, Sasaki gave up his first hits and runs in three weeks, annoyed the heck out of an umpire, but left after five innings. As has become the case, Marines manager Tadahito Iguchi said Sunday that his next start had not been decided, and on Monday, Sasaki was deactivated.
We also had Yu Darvish chiming on umpire Kazuyuki Shirai’s brief spat with Sasaki, which was not exactly as I expected.
So shall we get started?
Continue reading NPB news: April 25, 2022
