Tag Archives: SoftBank Hawks

Baseball, Paid Content

Remade Senga takes on PL

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Kodai Senga

Kodai Senga didn’t get his wish over the winter when he asked the SoftBank Hawks to allow him to pitch in the majors. But rather than dwell upon it, he remade himself over the winter with a little help from Yu Darvish.

The right-hander has come a long way since every NPB club passed on him until the Hawks selected him in the fourth round of the 2010 developmental draft. A total of 68 players were taken in the regular portion of the draft, and another 21 were taken in the developmental draft, before Senga, who was 90th out of 97 drafted that day.

You can read my interview with Senga for Kyodo News HERE.

Commentary, Paid Content

Not pulling your leg

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The big news out of Nippon Professional Baseball’s spring training on Tuesday was that Daisuke Matsuzaka is suffering from right-shoulder inflammation.

What’s unusual is that his club, the Central League’s Chunichi Dragons, believe it was caused at a meet-and-greet at the club’s training camp in Chatan, Okinawa prefecture, when a fan pulled on the right-hander’s arm.

The 38-year-old Matsuzaka later reported stiffness in the shoulder and is now prohibited from throwing.

Although he wasn’t really effective last season, Matsuzaka — who had surgery on that shoulder in August 2015 — excelled at pitching out of trouble last year and finished with a 6-4 record en route to winning NPB’s Comeback Player of the Year Award.

Is that an award one actually wins?

There was no word from the Dragons about the nature of the fan encounter. Was the fan in question challenging Matsuzaka to an arm wrestle? Was he falling over backward only to be saved by our hero reaching out to grab him?

Either way, the pitcher, who in 1999 took part in one of Japan’s ubiquitous all-star game home run derbies was seen taking healthy cuts in one of the indoor batting cages in lieu of pitching practice.