Marinerds, etc.

The Pacific League out-homered the Central League 4 to 1 in the second game of the All-Star Series, but the Central League completely clobbered Yoshihisa Naruse and the other PL pitchers to win the game 11-6. Despite Yokohama's Seiichi Uchikawa, whose birthday is Sunday, getting 4 hits in a row (and 5 overall to tie a record set by none other than Ichiro), the MVP of the game was Chunichi's Masahiro Araki. I don't really understand why, and he also seemed pretty surprised, but it's a nice sendoff to the Olympics, at least.

I know that Lisa went to the game, so she should have a post up soon about it, I hope. Marines outfielder Shoitsu Ohmatsu, who has been blasting homeruns left and right (mostly right) anyway, blasted two more during this game.

English articles: Daily Yomiuri, Asahi Shinbun, Japanball

And, in case you are wondering, this is what Hichori did this year:


(image from Hochi sports)

Yeah, apparently this year's gag was to dress upside down. I saw the TV highlights and before the game they apparently asked him "So, what's your performance this year?" and he said "Well, you'll just have to wait to find out!" Then he came out with the starting lineups, wearing an upside-down outfit -- it looked like he was walking on his hands, but really, he had a fake head under, and shoes on his hands and all. I have no clue how he could see with his head in the middle of his pants, but hey, he's Hichori, he can do anything. Articles about it in Japanese here and here.

All-Star Game Part 3 is actually tonight in Yamagata, where the minor league all-stars will play, but I'm not sure how much will be out about that. Then tomorrow I get to head to Sendai to see the Fighters. It's Inaba's birthday but he won't be there, but that's okay because I get to see KAZUHITO TADANO! Then Monday, I'm going to Yokohama to see the Baystars vs. Tigers, for the aforementioned Uchikawa's birthday! I decided it wasn't such a great idea to risk heatstroke in Koshien; I'll watch the games on TV. I think I will go to Osaka for a weekend in mid-late September, actually.

Yesterday, the Pacific League finally won an All-Star game for the first time in several years. With the CL ahead 4-3 in the ninth, Rick Short scored the game-tying run on a single by Nobuhiko Matsunaka, and then Tsuyoshi Nishioka scored the winning run on an RBI single by Takeshi Yamasaki.

In Japan they play two All-Star games every year, one in a CL stadium and one in a PL stadium, and this year was no different, with the first game in the Osaka Dome and the second at Yokohama Stadium.

To me, one of the most fascinating things was looking through Sportsnavi's rosters for the game -- Central and Pacific -- and note how many players have homepages. I got pretty sidetracked reading player blogs for a while!

Anyway, I had to work for the evening and couldn't watch the game itself, just the highlights afterwards. If you want English summaries, you can look at Japanball, Daily Yomiuri, or the Asahi Shinbun.

My translator script did translate the game, although there's a bug in the team names that I will fix later this weekend when I have a chance: Central 4, Pacific 5

Some great photographs are up at Mainichi: Central League players and Pacific League players.

I watched highlights on FujiTV around midnight, when they had Hiroyuki Nakajima, Norichika Aoki, and Kyuji Fujikawa on as guests for the sports news, to talk about the ASG and about the olympics. It was Nakajima's birthday and he felt very embarrassed about that error he made. Aoki, for his part, is really the best TV personality of any of them. He's really intelligent and well-spoken, says kind things about his teammates, and has good observations to make. (Although he, like the others, admitted that he thinks Hoshino is kind of scary. Also, they all said, basically, "Gold medal or bust!")

I am also wondering when Hichori is going to pull some crazy stunt. Maybe for the second game?

On a weirder note, I recently came across a really great New York Times article about Hiromitsu Ochiai, the Central League ASG manager. The catch? It was written in 1987. Well worth a read if you have a minute.

Game 2 is tonight at Yokohama Stadium. No, I'm not going to that one either. Grrr.

While I'm at it, since this is a links post:
Simon Currie posts NPB defensive numbers at the break and shows that the Fighters are still the best at defense.

The Koshien teams and schedule is up. Koshien starts TOMORROW -- August 2nd. I almost can't decide if I should ditch my plan to go to Sendai this weekend and head down to Osaka instead. Sadly, the match I really want to see -- Urawa Gakuin, my local team, vs. Yokohama HS, the powerhouse, is on Thursday afternoon while I have a class. Sigh.

Wherein Deanna shares with you all the way she filled in her All-Star Ballots, which is completely and utterly biased.

First, are you curious what all-star ballots look like in Japan? I know I certainly would be if I wasn't here. I don't have a scanner, so I took pictures of it with my dSLR and it should be good enough to at least give you an idea. Click on either of these small ones to see a little larger one. Also, you fill in a circle on these, instead of punching out the paper holes like you do in America. (My dad has great stories about using punched-card computer machines in the 1970's to fill out All-Star Ballots... but that's another story.)


Front


Voting side

Anyway, MY choices. Usually who I think is the best player at each position, but sometimes just who I felt like voting for:

Pacific League

SP: Shunsuke Watanabe, Marines
MP: Yuuki Kume, Hawks
CL: Daisuke Katoh, Buffaloes
C: Shinya Tsuruoka, Fighters
1B: Shinji Takahashi, Fighters
2B: Kensuke Tanaka, Fighters
SS: Hiroyuki Nakajima, Lions
3B: Toshiaki Imae, Marines
OF: Hichori Morimoto, Fighters
OF: Atsunori Inaba, Fighters
OF: Nobuhiko Matsunaka, Hawks
DH: Takeshi Yamasaki, Eagles


First, I honestly can't decide for SP between Darvish, Iwakuma, and Sugiuchi. There's reasonable arguments for them all, and I admire them all, so I decided to just toss them all out and vote for my ex-boyfriend Shunsuke. I admit that his recent decision to start wearing high socks had a lot of influence on my vote.

Kume over Hisashi Takeda for middle relief is really close too, but I am really impressed with the way former Meiji ace Kume-kun has pretty much hit the ground running this year. I'm almost wondering if he'll be in the running for PL ROY when all the dust settles. Also, he has great taste in okonomiyaki.

Daisuke Katoh is honestly the only Orix player I can vote for with a clean conscience. He really is a pretty darn good closer. I wonder when Orix will trade him away for a sack of beans. I realize Alex Graman is probably a better closer, but I'm also anti-Seibu. Did I mention I'm biased?

I picked Tsuruoka at catcher because I don't know what Hashimoto's status is, Satozaki is listed as being the Marines' DH instead of catcher, and Shinji Takahashi was listed at 1B, and Hosokawa can bite me.

I feel really bad for voting for two guys with broken hands, but it's not really Shinji's fault, so. I think it's almost comical that Akira Etoh is on there.

Kensuke Tanaka is a straight choice. He's just FANTASTIC and an all-star in every way.

The fact that I despise Seibu and still picked Hiro-chan for shortstop should tell you exactly how freaking good he's been this year. Besides, then he and Kensuke can make the All-Pink All-Number-3 middle infield. Or something.

I had a tossup between Imae and Matsuda at 3B, but I think Imae is actually entirely the better player here. Plus he is fuzzier (although I think Matsuda's goatee look is better than Imae's gorilla look in general).

Hichori and Inaba were pretty obvious choices, even with Hichori's broken hand. If nothing else, he should be at the ASG to pull off some stunt or prank! I am aware that Matsunaka is actually on the ballot as DH, but I think of him as 1B/LF, plus, he doesn't trump Takeshi, but he does trump a lot of the OF candidates. Also, due to my anti-Seibu bias I didn't want to pick GG Satoh, despite that he's absolutely RAKING this year. It's almost unfair. Wait, it IS unfair.

Oh yeah, and everyone knows I'm a big TAKESHI SMASH fan. BOOM!

Central League

SP: Colby Lewis, Carp
MR: Takehiko Oshimoto, Yakult
CL: Kyuji Fujikawa, Hanshin
C: Motonobu Tanishige, Dragons
1B: Tyrone Woods, Dragons
2B: Hiroyasu Tanaka, Yakult
SS: Hirokazu Ibata, Dragons
3B: Shuuichi Murata, Yokohama
OF: Masahiko Morino, Dragons
OF: Tomoaki Kanemoto, Hanshin
OF: Seiichi Uchikawa, Yokohama

I am, perhaps, biased against a particular team. I wonder who?

Anyway, Colby Lewis has been OWNING the Central League. It's pretty crazy.

As for Oshimoto as middle reliever over Kubota, this is just me being partial because I was angry we traded Oshimoto away from the Fighters. Plus he's doing a fantastic job over there with Yakult (and the 0.33 ERA doesn't hurt either). I think he's given up exactly one earned run... against Lotte last week. (But what I can't figure out is why Araki's home run off of him on April 27th was NOT counted as an earned run. I was there, I know it was a really short HR into the first row of seats, but still. I fail to understand how a home run with no outs is unearned. My best guess is that Fukukawa dropped a pop foul. This is what gets lost in box scores, and I didn't even write it down on my card.)

You know, I can't really decide whether I should vote for Fujikawa because he's unreal, or vote for Iwase because he needs my vote. I may just alternate when filling out ballots. I'm sure they will both get all-star spots regardless.

I think I will basically vote for Shige until his legs fall off. He's just my absolute favorite catcher in the CL now that Furuta retired.

If you don't know why I voted for Tyrone, you don't read this blog enough :) Though I will admit that he would be an ideal DH candidate (even if he would disagree), and that'd open up the 1B slot for Arai.

Something scary about the 2B selection is that I didn't see any particular person jump out immediately at me as OMG HAVE TO CHOOSE THEM. They're all mostly pretty great in their own way. It is a little weird for me to not choose both halves of Arakibata, but, I have to admit that I am partial to second basemen named Tanaka. Yeah, I know Higashide is suddenly batting up a storm out of nowhere, but when it comes to being an all-around good batter/fielder/etc, I have to choose Beavis.

So the deal with SS is, I'd rather vote for Takuro Ishii because I'm a huge fan, but in reality, I know darn well that Takashi Toritani is going to get the fan vote at shortstop. So I might as well vote for Ibata, since I think he is a better shortstop. (He's just amazing to watch in the field, seriously.)

Third base: It came down to deciding between Norihiro, who's really a 1B wearing a 3B glove, or THE MAN? Yeah, I had to go with THE MAN. They're also probably both going to end up on the team one way or the other.

I do not care that CF/3B Morino is injured, he gets my vote because he's my favorite player.
Aniki is Aniki. He doesn't really need my vote, but if ever there was a guy who had "All-Star" virtually tattooed on his forehead, it's Kanemoto.
You might have noticed my write-in for Seiichi Uchikawa. I don't think he'll finish the season at .400, but well, I feel like either he or Ohnishi or both should be recognized for how well they're doing this year.


I should perhaps choose a "WTF Are They Doing On The Ballot" team while I'm at it.

Anyway, none of this really matters, of course. I'm just one crazy fan out of millions.

Who are YOU voting for?

[Deanna gets home from work, turns on TV]

"Whew, it's only the third inning? Cool. Aw, National League is up 1-0 already."

"Oh, it's that Bonds guy. Hahaha... look at the way he thinks that's a homer. Sit down, dude."

"Yay! Cole Hamels!"

"Hmm. Prince Fielder is big."

"Chris Young is tall and he is throwing at people's feet."

"Oooh, Eric Byrnes! On a boat! Whee! Wow, he just threw his dog into McCovey's Cove on national TV. That's pretty funny. He's so awesome. I wonder if--

"--uhh... uhh... wait, did Ichiro just..."

"...holy crap! An inside-the-park home run! How awesome is that? That was the first one ever in all-star history? Wow! I think I'll turn off the TV and go run errands now, because nothing in the rest of the game is going to be as exciting as that was." [leaves]

[gets home, turns TV back on at 8:45pm or so]

"It's JJ. That must mean it's the end of the game. Wait, it's the bottom of the 9th, 2 outs, 1-2 count on Dmitri freaking Young. Woohoo! Better watch this one end..."

"That was lame. Jose Lopez would have made that play. Brian Roberts sucks. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT ISN'T AN ERROR?"

"Hmm... despite that I want the game to end, I think I would be really amused to see JJ Putz pitching to JJ Hardy..."

"...I WAS NOT ASKING FOR A SORIANO HOME RUN. AHEM."

"Of course those aren't strikes, Posada's setting up somewhere in the vicinity of Haight-Ashbury. Sheesh. Poor JJ."

"K-Rod is such a freak."

"*Such* a freak."

"COME ON ALREADY, THIS IS RETARDED. Throw a strike dammit!"

"WOOHOO! Suck it, National League!"

[ponders whether her presence jinxed JJ but helped Ichiro]

The All-Star Rosters for MLB have been released, finally. Ichiro and JJ Putz are representing the Mariners. There are some sort of bizarre choices in the ranks, perhaps partially due to the requirement for every team having a representative, but whatever. I think I'm most surprised and sad that Eric Byrnes didn't get on the team -- he's having a monster year, and he's from the Bay Area and lives there and would get to be in the ASG in front of friends and family and all. And besides, he's Eric Byrnes, which is worth even more entertainment value on its own. Alas.

There's a Final Vote for the last two all-stars, and while all of the choices are legitimately guys who should or could be all-stars, I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm fully behind voting in Pat Neshek, even though my Fighters pride says I should be behind Hideki Okajima. Why? Because Pat Neshek is really goddamn cool. As he put it:

"I really don't know how to describe this, but I'm the fan/collector/guy that somehow managed to get to the big leagues. I seriously wake up each day and can't believe how I got here and am thankful to even touch the uniform! Basically if I wasn't playing baseball right now I would probably be the guy who was coming home from work and planning a night around baseball... planning what games to go to, which minor league teams to get autographs at, which guy to take on my fantasy team and which guy to trade in MLB The Show... heck this is what I do in the off-season, no lie! Basically I'm a fan of baseball, if your team wasn't represented in this final 5 Vote I would love to represent you and all the fans of the game. I can tell you right now that nobody in the world, no other player would appreciate this more than me. So if you want somebody that is a fan of the game, a guy just like you, a guy that would probably pass out if elected to the ALL STAR game then you can help me out by voting here!"

And if that wasn't enough, Pat had a contest for someone to make YouTube videos advertising his campaign, and one of the guys on his forum made this parody song for the campaign, which is awesome. I'm the queen of baseball parody lyrics, dammit, so if I say it's good, it's good. Go vote for Pat.

Now, on to some not-so-starry all-starness. The fan voting results are in for the NPB All-Star game, and it's completely retarded in the Pacific League. Now, I'm all for cheering for the Rakuten Golden Eagles because they're the crazy underdogs -- it's like being a closet Mets fan back in the mid-1960's -- but EIGHT ALL-STARS? WHAT?

    Central League                 Pacific League
SP  Hiroki Kuroda (HC)             Masahiro Tanaka (TRGE)
RP  Masanori Hayashi (YG)          Akira Matsumoto (TRGE)
CL  Kyuji Fujikawa (HT)            Kazuo Fukumori (TRGE)
C   Shinnosuke Abe (YG)            Motohiro Shima (TRGE)
1B  Kenta Kurihara (HC)            Nobuhiko Matsunaka (FSH)
2B  Toshihisa Nishi (YBS)          Yosuke Takahasu (TRGE)
3B  Michihiro Ogasawara (YG)       Hiroki Kokubo (FSH)
SS  Hirokazu Ibata (CD)            Munenori Kawasaki (FSH)
OF  Tomonori Maeda (HC)            Koichi Isobe (TRGE)
OF  Norichika Aoki (YS)            Teppei Tsuchiya (TRGE)
OF  Kosuke Fukudome (CD)           Tuffy Rhodes (OB)
DH                                 Takeshi Yamasaki (TRGE)

Now I mean, there are a few bones I could pick with the CL -- Hisanori Takahashi is by far the best starting pitcher in the CL so far this year, but he only finished 5th in the voting, even behind his teammate Tetsuya Utsumi. I like Kenta Kurihara, but Tyrone Woods is a monster. I'm bitter about Ogasawara, of course, but as usual he's fully deserving of an all-star spot. Hirokazu Ibata is the best shortstop in Japan, so no complaints there. I'm amused that Tomoaki Kanemoto didn't place in the top 3 in CL outfielders, but since the rest of the top ten in voting are Kanemoto, Yoshinobu Takahashi, Tani, Morino (!!!!!), Akahoshi, and Alex Ramirez, I'll let it slide. I can't imagine that the rest of those guys don't end up on the roster.

You may notice that I actually listed only 6 more for the top ten, and that's because there's one outlier that doesn't really make sense -- Koichi Ogata, who's been on the DL for the last month or so, and wasn't doing so well before that. Maybe someone's stuffing the ballots for both Rakuten and Hiroshima?

The most obvious of the "WTF" choices for Rakuten are catcher Motohiro Shima (currently batting .168 and not all that great at calling a game; Lotte's Tomoya Satozaki is still the best catcher in the PL), and middle reliever Akira Matsumoto (currently with an ERA of 6.10 and has walked 14 guys and struck out 17 in 28 innings; the Fighters' Hisashi Takeda IS the best setup man in the PL (1.96 ERA, 31 K, 11 BB, 41 IP, 4-2 with 2 saves). Those are the awful choices. The "Err, OKAY" choices would be Isobe and Teppei in the outfield over Tamura and Hichori, and to be fair, much as I hate to say it since I like him, Kazuo Fukumori as closer over the unreal Takahiro Mahara, who has been just plain fantastic this year as the Hawks' closer. I mean, the guy's converted all 22 of his save chances and has allowed ONE EARNED RUN in 27 games (32 IP). I thought he was amazing last year and he's gotten even better this year.

I'm not going to comment on Masahiro Tanaka. I don't have a problem with him getting the popular vote, a la Matsuzaka, and he's been pretty damn good for an 18-year-old kid. I also have no problem with Takeshi Yamasaki getting the DH vote because he's been an absolute monster this year. But the rest of the Eagles? Uhhh, no.

Fortunately, I'm pretty sure that most of the rest of the guys who deserve to be all-stars will get chosen for it by the managers and all. But this is just seriously seriously screwed up.