CL Race Tightens Up

With Yomiuri on a semi-skid, Hiroshima treading water, Chunichi playing pretty good ball and Hanshin playing really good ball the Central League race has tightened up considerably.  All four teams are now within 4.5 games of each other and could probably end up finishing in any order 1-4. 

Chunichi has been a little banged up, but are starting to get their players back.  Yoshimi has returned and started a couple games, Araki is back and Luna and Hirata should be joining the ichi-gun team within the next couple weeks.  In the meantime their replacements have been chipping in and Shuhei Takahashi has joined the big club. 

The Dragons will face the Carp in six of their next nine games, important games in what is currently a battle for third and fourth in the standings. 

Also, congratulations to Hitoki Iwase who increased his NPB all-time record for saves by picking up save No.400 in Chunichi's victory Saturday over Yomiuri.

Daisuke Yamai No-Hits the Baystars!

On Friday night Daisuke Yamai recorded his first career no-hitter in a 9-0 Chunichi win over Yokohama.  The Dragons jumped out to a 7-run lead in the first prior to Yamai even taking the mound.  Yamai then proceeded to mow down Yokohama's hitters, the first nine in order until a 4th inning walk toTakehiro Ishikawa.  Yamai finished the game with 4 walks and 3 strikeouts, the Dragons defense commited no errors and no Yokohama runner got any farther than first base.  Yamai cruised through the first six innings without giving up any hard hit balls (at least that I recall).  He wasn't striking out many guys but his breaking ball was producing a lot of weak grounders including two double-plays.  After the sixth Yokohama began to hit the ball more squarely and Yamai dodged a few bullets along the way.  Takagi brought Morino and Fujii  in early as defensive replacements to help preserve the no-hitter.  Both players made major contributions as Morino made a nice diving stop on a grounder in the 7th and Fujii overcame a stumble to snag a well hit ball in the 8th, Fujii as well as Ohshima covered a lot of outfield ground in the late innings tracking down deep balls hit by Blanco, Shirasaki and Ramirez.  With two outs in the 9th Yamai fielded a bounding groundball headed towards first base and underhanded to Morino at the bag to record the final out, just getting the speedy Kensuke Uchimura and making himself the 77th NPB pitcher to record a no-hitter.

I can't think of a more deserving pitcher than Yamai to get a no-hitter.  Looking back at Yamai's start in Game 5 of the 2007 Japan Series, in which Daisuke had a perfect game going through 8 innings but was then pulled in favor of closer Hitoki Iwase in what turned out to be the clinching game for Chunichi.  I still agree with then-manager Ochiai's decision, but it was still an unfortunate circumstance for Yamai who came so close to the record books and was left to wonder what would have happened had he come out for the 9th inning.  Now, thanks to his performance Friday night, he and everyone else who follows Japanese baseball knows that he has what takes to finish off a no-hitter.  

The Newest Member of the Meikyukai, Motonobu Tanishige!

Link to the Official Page

Hitoki Iwase Saves his 350th Game

Chunichi closer and all-time NPB leader in saves, Hitoki Iwase, collected his 350th save in last night's 6-3 victory over Yakult.  Iwase has been Chunichi's closer since 2004 and over his career has had five seasons with 40 or more saves and saved more than 30 games in each of his last eight seasons.

Here are some other upcoming Chunichi milestones to watch out for:

Motonobu Tanishige needs 12 more hits to reach Meikyukai status with 2,000 career hits.

Each time Masa Yamamoto pitches he extends his oldest pitcher in the CL record and has a chance to extent his NPB oldest pitcher to start and win a game record.