Yakyu All-Stars

Hello everyone. Yes I know that I am behind with my games to be posted but I wanted to get this one on the blog rather quickly as it turned out to be a great game and all around great day for Pro Yakyu. Also, just a little note, I will be doing an official stadium report on Starfin Stadium sometime during the off season because hey, we need to keep the Yakyu news flowing all year long right? So for now, my initial impressions of the stadium and today's game will have to do.

So, right now the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters are hosting a 3 game series with the Rakuten Eagles. Well, the first 2 games of this series are being held here in Asahikawa at Starfin Stadium as part of the Fighter's "We Love Hokkaido Series". So what that means basically is that every year, the Ham play a certain number of games in different parts of Hokkaido in order to bring baseball to the far reaches of the island and believe me folks, some of these places here in Hokkaido are far reaches. This is brilliant marketing on the Ham's part as they drew a little over 15,000 people for a day game on a weekday today. Oh yeah, and you'll notice too that the Fighters are wearing different uniforms too as part of the "We Love Hokkaido Series". Last year they were black and dark blue I believe but this year they decided to go with a purple colored uniform and I've got to say that I like it because it's different.



Infielder Chung-Shou Yang warming up before the game.



FINALLY! Some decent pics of Atsunori Inaba! You can run but you can not hide HA HA! Seriously, I've tried long and hard to get good pics of Inaba but just couldn't.



Inaba loves Hokkaido and so should you!



Did I mention that Inaba is so cool? I honestly think he's part machine and that makes it even better.



Kensuke Tanaka really does love the color pink but the new inflatable hands that the team is selling really suck which will be covered in a rant on a future blog entry.

Come to think of it, the "We Love Hokkaido" games are sort of similar to what Seibu does with its "Lions Classic" games because they play against every team in the Pacific League while wearing special uniforms and promoting a common theme (Seibu's reflects on its past while the Fighters concentrate on bringing baseball and itself subsequently closer to the entire island of Hokkaido). But it's strange that the Ham didn't play any "We Love Hokkaido" games against Orix this season. I don't know the reason for that but the concept for these games works and "I Love Hokkaido" even more as a result.

I'm going to assume that we all know who Victor Starfin is but for those who don't, who can find out who he is at this page here. I had bought my tickets via telephone back in April when they went on sale and had been looking forward to this trip for a number of months and it was well worth the wait. Asahikawa is a nice small city in the northern part of Hokkaido with some of the best ramen in all of Japan. But, the reason why I came to Asahikawa was to visit Starfin Stadium and what a great stadium it is indeed. The minute you walk into the main gate, you are presented with this statue:



Simply amazing and awe-inspiring is all I have to say. A true icon in Pro Yakyu is Mr. Victor Starfin and even though I don't know as much about the history of Pro Yakyu as some other people I know, I really did feel humbled and blessed to have the chance to visit such an awesome place. If any of you ever get the rare chance to come to Asahikawa for a game, by all means do it. You won't be disappointed. The actual stadium itself seemed kind of small to me and reminded me of Hiratsuka Stadium in Kanagawa Prefecture where I used to live (I did a write up on a Shonan SeaRex game at Hiratsuka Stadium earlier this year if you want to learn more about that place).

Now, as for the game itself, the staring pitchers were Hisashi Iwakuma for Rakuten and Tomoya Yagi for the Fighters. Nippon Ham started the game out really good by getting to Iwakuma in the bottom of the 1st. Kensuke Tanaka singled to left to start things off and was later driven in on an RBI Single by DH Shinji Takahashi and just like that it was 1-0 Fighters. It seemed like this was going to be a bad day for Iwakuma who gave up 3 hits in the first inning alone, but he got the help he needed in the top of the 2nd when Takeshi "Hulk Smash" Yamasaki walked to start the inning off and then was brought home when Fernando Seguignol homered to left to give Rakuten a 2-1 lead. Then in the 3rd, Rakuten struck again thanks to Tomoya Yagi's bad control. Rakuten lead off man Todd Linden singled with one out and was then moved over to third on a single to right by Naoto Watanabe. Shortly after that, Teppi hit an RBI Single to shallow right which made it 3-1 Rakuten. "Hulk Smash" Yamasaki then fouled out to 3rd and Yagi then proceeded to give up back to back walk to Seguignol and Rick Short which brought in Watanabe from third and widened Rakuten's lead at 4-1. But we weren't finished yet as former Yakult Swallow Ryuji Miyade singled to shallow center to put another run on the board and make it 5-1 Rakuten. Nippon Ham added another run of their own in the bottom of the 3rd when Kazuya Murata singled to left and then proceeded to steal 2nd while Atsunori Inaba was batting. Shinji Takahashi then hit his second RBI of the game which was a single to shallow left and that made it 5-2 Rakuten. Fernando Seguignol added another run in the top of the 8th via a solo home run to make it 6-2 and pinch hitter Yoshitoro Satoh added a solo home run of his own in the bottom of the 9th to make it 6-3 but the Ham could do no more and that's where the score ended up.



Hisashi Iwakuma catches a ball with his eyes closed.



Iwakuma delivering a pitch in the bottom of the 1st.

Yagi settled down after the 3rd inning and ended up pitching into the 7th inning. Meanwhile, Iwakuma just dominated the Fighters after he got that run support and ended up going all 9 innings on 111 pitches to get the win although he did give up 10 hits and 3 runs to the Ham while striking out 4 and walking 1. But despite Yagi's performance (5 runs 7 hits 6 strike outs and 4 walks though 7 innings), this was his first loss in a month or so I believe and he does hold an 8-2 record this season with a 2.90 ERA as of now and that has to count for something. Every pitcher has his off day and I think this was Yagi's so we'll see if he can rebound in his next start or if this is something else.


Tomoya Yagi sporting the special issue jersey for the "We Love Hokkaido" games.



Yagi delivering a pitch in the 6th inning.

All in all, a great day for Yakyu as I got to visit Starfin Stadium for the first time and see Iwakuma pitch a fantastic game. Hopefully, the game tomorrow will be just as good and I will end my time here in Asahikawa on a good note but until then, please enjoy some sights from the game today as posted in the blog here and as always, thanks for reading and keep supporting the game of Pro Yakyu.



Speaking of good things, today was Ryuji Miyade's birthday and he gave us all a present by hitting an RBI single in the game. Thanks Ryuji and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!



Makoto Kaneko also loves Hokkaido.



Kensuke Tanaka puts the tag on "Hulk Smash" Yamasaki as he tried to go for extra bases in the 5th. I really think I need more action shots like this in my blog which is something I'll try to work on in the future.



Fernando Seguignol crosses home plate after his second home run of the day. Ironically, since he bats switch, he hit his first one from the right side of the plate and his second one from the left side of the plate which was really neat to see.



Seguignol STILL loves Hokkaido and Hokkaido and Fighters fans still love him.



Yoshitoro Satoh does his best Seguignol impersonation in the bottom of the 9th.



Kazuya Murata warming up in the 9th inning and yes, He does love Hokkaido too so don't ask.


And much like "Everybody Loves Raymond", it's a safe bet to say that "Everybody Loves Hokkaido" just as much if not more.

Hello again everyone. This past weekend, Saturday June 13^th and Sunday June, 14^th, I took a trip to Miyagi Prefecture in north Japan to see the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles take on the Yokohama BayStars at the ever famous Kleenex Stadium Miyagi. Now despite the name of the stadium as possibly being on of the worst ever, the stadium itself is a really nice place and Rakuten has done quite well in terms of marketing and really capturing the attention of the people in Miyagi and the surrounding areas. They drew 20,000+ crowds for the two games this past weekend and it was great to see people supporting the Eagles. The Rakuten eagles have only been in existence for about 5 years but already they are pushing themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the Pacific League and quite frankly, the team has gotten my attention and I’m listening. I can’t explain it but there’s a charm about the Eagles that makes them attractive in my opinion and I think I’ve somewhat become enamored with them as they are my second favorite team along with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in the Pacific League, who both are behind Seibu of course. Maybe it’s their young stud pitchers Hisashi Iwakuma and Masahiro Tanaka, or maybe it’s the manager, Katsuya Nomura (highly doubtful on this one), but I like the Rakuten Eagles and really when I can’t cheer for Seibu , I can see myself putting on some maroon and pulling for the Eagles.

This is MR.CARRASCO, one of Rakuten's many mascots. He is known for doing crazy things such as stunts on a dirt bike and literally climbing the very small wall in the outfield and jumping into the stands. He totally rocks.

But before I go on, I’d just like to say thank you to Michael Westbay from JapaneseBaseball.com for the camera advice he gave on one of my previous posts. I’m still learning the ropes with my new camera so to speak and hopefully, as time goes on, this blog can serve as sort of a personal history to showcase my improvement in picture taking.

But enough joking aside, this weekend totally sucked for Yokohama. Now we all know that the Stars aren’t having the best season this year but after this weekend series, I can now officially say that they are content to be bottom feeders in NPB. I mean seriously, totaling 7 hits and 0 runs in two games just means utter fail. Yokohama is serving up its fans a double order of fail fries with a triple order of weak sauce every time they take the field seriously. It’s gotten to the point where I just don’t care enough about the team enough to pay attention to them aside from reading the sports news everyday to see how they did. And while I will always be a BayStars fan as they got me though some hard times a few years back, I absolutely refuse to be “a carp in a pond that eats whatever is fed to him” and I feel that that’s what many BayStars fans are as they just keep blindly following the team and hope that the team can win. They could learn a thing or two from the Chiba Lotte fans. Yeah, believing in your team is one thing, but when your team is in a tailspin and going downward with no end in sight, surely you must question what can be done to fix the team right? As a consumer, I want to get the most bang for my buck and am using this as a chance to explore other teams and take my interest in NPB to the next level. So basically, I use Yokohama as an excuse to go on road trips as I’ll be going to Mazda Zoom Zoom Stadium in late July to see the new stadium when the Stars have a series there.

Dan Johnson or "DJ" as he likes to be called. I don't know what happened but he isn't playing that well these days.

Yokohama centerfielder Tatsuhiko Kinjoh. Honestly, I like Kinjoh but it seems like this may be his last year in Yokohama.

New lead-off man Yuki Yoshimura. I admit, while the concept of Yoshimura as a lead-off hitter is intriguing, he strikes out way to much for my taste and shouldn't be batting lead-off in my opinion.

Seiichi Uchikawa trying to be gangster in left field before the game. All kidding aside though, I really like Uchi and honestly, I think that Tashiro-kantoku should give him a shot to lead-off again.

As for the games themselves, Yokohama was totally outclassed from the start. The starters for Game 1 were Ryan Glynn for the Stars and Satoshi Nagai for the Eagles. This was a typical start for Glynn as he gave up runs early in the game and didn’t receive any run support whatsoever from the offense. Rakuten needed little effort to win this game as they mainly used Glynn’s erratic control against him to do so.

After a fly out to left by Daisuke Kusano to start the bottom of the 2^rd, Tsuchiya Teppei walked and then advanced to third on a single to right by Kenshi. Yosuke Hirashi also walked to load the bases and then Rakuten catcher Motohiro Shima walked to make it 1-0 Rakuten with the bases still loaded. Then, leadoff hitter Naoto Wantanabe singled to center to make it 3-0 Rakuten and that’s where the score stayed until the bottom of the 8^th where Daisuke Kusano would add another run on an RBI double to make it 4-0 Rakuten. Again, Rakuten didn’t need all that much to win the game as they only had 6 hits total and 5 of them were singles.

But Satoshi Nagai on the other hand, totally handcuffed Yokohama by throwing a complete game while allowing 2 hits and striking out 8 while walking 4. Perhaps this will make Rakuten manager Katsuya Nomura appreciate what pitching he has instead of grumbling about how Iwakuma and Tanaka ore the only good pitchers there are and how he can’t send them out everyday to start. I guess I’m a spoiled Yakyu fan as earlier in the week, I saw Hideaki Wakui of the Lions also go the distance against Hanshin. Two complete games in one week is a great thing.

But to Yokohama’s credit I did see some things I liked. While I get on Ryan Glynn a lot, he did pitch great after giving up those 3 runs there’s no denying that. And also, I like what Tashiro kantoku did in mixing things up with the starting lineup. Now frankly, while having Yuki Yoshimura lead off and Dan Johnson bat second is not such a good thing in my opinion, he did something different and I think that deserves a little credit. But even that is stretching it out and can’t hide that fact that things were not so good in Sendai this weekend for the Stars.

Now, I had hope for Game 2 to be honest with you because Yokohama’s ace, Daisuke Miura, took the mound for Game 2 against the brick wall known as Hisashi Iwakuma. But alas, even “Hama No Bancho” was not enough to overcome defeat as he got hammered. Miura wasn’t his normal self as his control seemed a bit off and besides that, one of my friends told me that he hurt his leg or something during his last start so it’s also quite possible that he has been playing hurt as well.

Yokohama Ace Daisuke Miura warming up before starting the 1st inning.

Miura just before throwing his first pitch of the game.

Miura looking cool in his shades and practice uniform before the game.

Hisashi Iwakuma right before throwing a pitch.

Hisashi Iwakuma right after throwing a pitch.

Hisashi Iwakuma yet again.

Rakuten exploded and did most of their damage in the 5^th and 6^th innings by scoring 7 runs and totaling 9 hits in those two innings as well. Rakuten DH Takeshi “Hulk Smash” Yamazaki went 3 for 4 with 2 home runs and 2 RBIs and 3 runs scored and catcher Akihito Fuji went 3 for 3 with 2 RBIs and 3 runs scored. Seriously, if the Japanese were to ever make their own version of “The Hulk”, Takeshi Yamazaki would be the perfect guy to fill the role as he’s not only a decent sized guy, but he has the temper to boot.

Rakuten outfielder Teppei touching up first base during a pickoff attempt by Ryan Glynn during Game #1.

Teppei advancing to third on a single by Rakuten first baseman Kenshi during Game #1. It was the same play as the picture above too ironically.

Catcher Akihito Fuji standing on first base after recording his third hit of the day during Game #2.

Rakuten left fielder Masato Nakamura just after hitting a single in the 5th inning of Game #1.

Daisuke Kusano stealing second base.

But despite Yokohama continuing its losing ways, Sendai was great as always. Kleenex Stadium Miyagi is a gorgeous stadium and Rakuten has done a lot to improve it, although those Lawson “Group Seats” in the right field stands are totally stupid and messed up part of the charm of the stadium which were the little hills in the outfield where you could sit and lay your blanket out just like in the countryside stadiums (left field still has the hill where people sit). So, if you ever get the chance to go, please do as you won’t regret it.

http://www.rakuteneagles.jp/game/scoreboard/index/2009061401.html#5

http://www.rakuteneagles.jp/game/scoreboard/record/2009061301.html

http://bis.npb.or.jp/eng/2009/games/s2009061400792.html

http://bis.npb.or.jp/eng/2009/games/s2009061300781.html

And finally, I leave you with this photo:



BayStars veteran pitcher Kimiyasu Kudoh. When it comes to this season, the look on Kudoh's face pretty much sums up how I feel when I think about the BayStars. I think this is going to be my mandatory introduction photo for all BayStars related posts this year.