New foreign players Raul Valdes and Amaury Rivas made their first appearances for the Dragons in yesterday's practice game against the Marines. A replay of the game can be seen on UStream.
Valdes is a 37-year old Cuban lefthander with some experience as a reliever in the Major Leagues, but was mainly a starter in the minors. I don't know which role Chunichi plans on using him, but he did start this game. His severely short-armed delivery looks more like a reliever's to me, but it looks like he has a variety of off-speed pitches so he has a chance to be successful as a starter. He pitched three shutout innings yesterday and his fastball was topping out around 140 km.
Rivas is a 29-year old righty from the Dominican. He looks more like a traditional power pitcher with a big windup and a mid-140's fastball. Rivas was tagged for a couple solo home runs yesterday, one on a breaking ball and the other looked like a first-pitch fastball. He did have a nice strike out on a changeup.
Overall, I had a good first impression of both pitchers. You can't take too much from the results of a preseason game, especially a first game, but based on their stuff I think both of these guys could be useful this year.
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