Pitching strong in Intrasquad; Nitkowski Father Again

With his fastball topping out at 146km/h, SoftBank workhorse Toshiya Sugiuchi's short intrasquad appearance went fairly well, but the lefty believes he can do better.

Suguichi's final line was 2 innings, 2 hits, 2 strikeouts, and one earned run. With aces Kazumi Saitoh and Tsuyoshi Wada out with injuries, SoftBank will be handing the ball to him for Opening Day at Fukuoka Dome against the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.

Gaijin pickup DJ Houlton also pitched well for the white team, which held the red team to a single run in 8 innings before being washed out by rain.

For the red team, it was the gaijin show. Rick Guttormson and Christopher Nitkowski pitched, but the White team had most of the regulars, and everybody after Guttormson ran into some form of trouble or another.

In other team news, left-handed reliever Christopher Nitkowski is a proud father once again. His wife gave birth to their 3rd child (2nd son) on the 17th. CJ reported on his blog on February 17th that the baby and his wife are healthy.