It was a holiday Wednesday in Japan with six day games, and we have a rich snapshot of a wild day. But it wasn’t supposed to be that way.
The missus and I went to visit friends in Yokohama, and had a great time but things went south later. By the time we got home I felt sick, partly due to lack of sleep being stressed out by the next step on America’s down the slippery slope into a white supremacist autocracy.
The last thing I wanted to do was blog, and was going to make this as brief as possible. But baseball is an amazing thing. When I least expected it, checking out the goings on proved to be the tonic I need.
The day started with a downer when Orix deactivated Yoshinobu Yamamoto due to fatigue after he surrendered a career-worst seven runs on Tuesday.
But there was indeed fun. In Sapporo, we had a starting pitching milestone, while Reynato Núñez gave manager Tsuyoshi Shinjo something to be optimistic about.
Carp outfielder Kento Nakamura, yet another one of Hiroshima’s never-ending parade of rookies, had himself a game, and we’ll give us something to watch for tomorrow. It will be no good looking for Dragons shortstop Yota Kyoda tomorrow after manager Kazuyoshi Tatsunami lost his patience and banished him to the farm, during Wednesday’s game.
And if that’s not enough, we had Yuki Yanagita doing stuff that pretty much nobody does but him. As an appetizer, how about the Pacific League TV plays of the day?
OK. Let’s get started.
Continue reading NPB news: May 4, 2022