2013 to be Morimichi Takagi's Final Year as Chunichi Manager

It's looking even more official now that this will be Morimichi Takagi's last year with the Dragons.  Yakyubaka's recent post links to some reports as well as listing some of Takagi's potential replacements.  This being Takagi's last year has been rumored since before the season started, and moving onto a new manager for 2014 makes a lot of sense for both sides.  Takagi's had a decent and interesting run so far, but his style is likely wearing on the players by this point and at his age he's probably better off leaving the demands of being a professional manager.

Here's a rundown of who's being discussed for the job:

Ken Macha - Pennsylvania native, former major leaguer and former Dragons clean-up hitter in the early 1980s.  Macha also managed six years in the major leagues including four successful seasons with the Oakland A's and two mediocre seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers.

Kazuhiko Ushijima - Former Dragons closer in the early to mid 1980's and five-time NPB All-Star.  He was part of a trade that sent him to Lotte and Hiromitsu Ochiai to Chunichi.  Was the manager of the Yokohama BayStars in 2005 and 2006.

Kazuyoshi Tatsunami - Mr. Dragon, a Dragons legend and member of the Meikyukai.  Assistant coach of the 2013 Team Japan at the World Baseball Classic.

Kazuki Inoue - Long-time Dragons outfielder and current Chunichi hitting coach. 

Motonobu Tanishige - Current Dragons catcher

I'm rooting for either Tatsunami or Inoue.  I think listing Tanishige as a candidate is a stretch, though I wouldn't be surprised to see him become the manager of an NPB team at some point.

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.  

Dragons Ink Hector Luna to Contract Extension

Roughly a week ago Chunichi and third-baseman Hector Luna came to agreement on a contract extension.  The deal adds an additonal two years to Luna's current contract and has a club option for a third year.  Extending Luna makes a lot of sense, not only because he's leading the NPB in hitting, but because he's a capable third-baseman leaving first base open for other foreign players. 

Luna's signing is interesting because it seems to show a change in team philosophy concerning foreign players, at least in this instance.  Over the last near-decade that I've followed the Dragons their management has been unwilling to do multi-year contracts with foreign players, even productive players and fan favorites like Tyrone Woods and Tony Blanco.  I'm not sure if Luna's production alone led to his extension at this time or if the consequences of not re-signing Blanco over the last offseason had something to do with it.  Blanco has been a beast this year for Yokohama, currently hitting .341 with 23 HR and 62 RBI, but I don't think too many people expected him to hit quite that well.  I certainly wasn't expecting that from Blanco, I was a little more than 50-50 in favor of re-signing him because he'd had trouble staying healthy the last couple years and hadn't produced as much as when he first came to Chunichi.  I was also curious to see what other foreign first-basemen could be acquired.  I'm not sure what exactly has led to Blanco's success this year, likely a combination of a fresh environment, the "new" NPB ball and Yokohama's stadium, but in hindsight Chunichi looks pretty bad for letting him go.  Clearly the Dragons didn't want to let Luna get away in free agency and fortunately Luna was interested sticking around.

Kazuki Yoshimi Done for the Year

It's about official now that Kaz Yoshimi will need reconstructive elbow surgery which will likely require a year or more of rehabilitation.  The news was posted today on yakyubaka and newspaper reports state that the surgery will occur early next month.  Many pitchers these days return from elbow surgery as strong or stronger than before the injury so Yoshimi, at 28 years old, should have many more seasons left in his arm should his recovery go as expected.

The loss of Yoshimi for the season is a major blow to Chunichi's chances of being a serious contender in the Central.  The Dragons still have a good chance to make a run at a playoff spot and still have a capable pitching staff, but Yoshimi is a on a different level than the rest of Chunichi's staff.  When healthy I'd put him up there with any pitcher in Japan, maybe not stuff-wise but with his ability to get outs and in big situations.  That's something that Chunichi can't live without should they be fortunate enough to make the playoffs.

So far this season Chunichi's pitching hasn't been on par with what its been the last several years.  The bullpen in particular has struggled, but the coaches have juggled things and come up with some, at least short-term, fixes.  One of those moves has been moving Kenichi Nakata to the bullpen where he's a done a solid job.  Nakata's move to the pen though thins Chunichi's starting pitching options even further.  They'll now be missing Yoshimi and have been missing Kenshin Kawakami who's been MIA all season, I assume due to injury, but I haven't seen any details why.  That leaves Soma Yamauchi, Yudai Ohno, Bradley Bergesen, Daniel Cabrera, and Shinji Iwata as the other main starters.  Yamamoto, Asakura and others will likely fill in the last spot.  As far as those first five guys go, they've all had some success now in the NPB, but also had some ups and downs.  Hopefully it will be mostly ups as the season continues, because it will be up to them to keep Chunichi's postseason streak going.  I think they can do it, the bullpen may be a different story though, but of course it all would have looked so much more promising with Kaz Yoshimi as the team's number one.

Sunday Night's Game vs. Softbank to be Broadcasted on UStream

Chunichi vs. Softbank May 19th, 6PM JST will be shown on Chunichi's Official UStream.

And here's the rest of the upcoming schedule for UStream Games as shown on their page:

May 25 6PM JST vs. Lions
May 28 6PM JST vs. Marines
June 8 6PM JST vs. Hawks
June 12 6PM JST vs. Lions
May 16 1PM JST vs. Marines (9PM PST, I'll likely be watching this one)
August 20 6PM JST vs. Carp
September 17 6PM JST vs. Giants

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.