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Blowback, bad breaks and Friday’s games

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It’s took two weeks, but the blowback over Yakult manager Takahiro Ikeyama’s heretical disregard of Japan’s sacrifice bunt dogma has begun. The Orix Buffaloes got some bad news, and there were games as well.

Bad break for Buffaloes  

Orix ace Hiroya Miyagi was diagnosed with damage to his ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow Friday, and the team said it will get a second opinion before proceeding with season-ending surgery. Miyagi threw some absolutely wicked sliders to get two strikeouts with two on and no outs but left after the second strikeout with elbow discomfort.

The diminutive 24-year-old southpaw has struck out 17 batters in 13-1/3 innings this season. He is 50-30 in his career with a 2.51 ERA, has pitched for Japan in each of the last two WBC’s, and was one of the players I was so looking forward to seeing regularly this season.

He’s a delightful guy, and in March at Tokyo Dome, he became the first Japanese player in my 30 years covering baseball here to ask me to give him a high five.

Bunt blowback

“If they (the Swallows) keep playing this way, they’ll finish last,” a “pennant-winning manager” said Thursday according to Ronspo.com.

On Wednesday, former Hanshin Tigers skipper Akinobu Okada questioned Ikeyama’s choices.

“Back when I was managing, the team with the most sacrifice bunts usually won the title. That was the case in 1985, too. It may look like Hanshin won by hitting a lot, but we actually had a high number of sacrifice bunts,” Okada said of the Tigers’ first Japan Series champs, one of two Tigers pennant-winning teams to lead the league in sacrifices. They were first again last year as well, but fourth in sacrifices in 2005, when Okada managed his first CL pennant.

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Baseball, Commentary, News, Paid Content

MLB covers up mess with “Band-Aid”

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On Tuesday, Nikkan Sports first reported that Major League Baseball, concerned about the appearance of impropriety, has told its teams to terminate all working agreements with the four foreign pro baseball organizations it recognizes.

The impropriety mentioned in the order, was that of MLB teams making contact with players under contract with or reserved by foreign clubs that violate the protocol agreements MLB has with Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization, the CPBL, Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League, and Liga Mexicana de Beisbol.

That’s the kind of thing that got the Los Angeles Dodgers fined when, according to Adrian Gonzalez, Andrew Friedman and the club’s brass asked him to bring Dodgers gifts to Shohei Ohtani in 2016.

Shohei Ohtani with Edgar and Adrian Gonzalez at Tokyo Dome in 2016.

“‘Hey, if we give you a care package for him, will you present it to him? Because we cannot pursue him, it’s against the rules, but you as a person can obviously take whatever you want to any player. Of course, the Dodgers got fined and in trouble for that. But they paid their fines. They knew there was a possibility and the team paid their fines.”

-Adrian Gonzalez to Dodger Blue in January, 2024

The March 4 order from the office of the commissioner forced teams to suspend all existing agreements and prohibited them from creating new ones. It also ended any exchange of coaches, something that has alerted both MLB organizations and Japanese coaches to different ways baseball can be taught and learned.

Such beneficial exchanges are now over, because the commissioner’s office says that they create a situation where tampering with players can occur.

The order reads in part as follows:

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