I'm back on the horse, Hawks Struggling

With a record of 1-3-1 in their last five games, the SoftBank Hawks are not off to the best of starts in the 2009 season. Their record so far in the season is 4-6-1, next to last in the Pacific League. The hitting has been anemic, and the pitching in general has been very inconsistent, a trend that has been apparent since 2007.

While there are 144 games in the NPB season, the Hawks clearly are in the middle of a power shift in the Pacific League. Lotte is having a hard time getting its pitching together, and Nippon Ham is still a poor hitting team. Rakuten, Seibu, and Orix are going to be tough teams to beat in the PL, and the bottom 3 teams have been some of the more omnipresent teams in NPB the last 5 years or so.

What has been pretty good for the Hawks has been their foreign pitching. Brian Falkenborg extended his streak of innings without giving up an earned run to 9 today in a 2-2 tie against Seibu, DJ Houlton is benefiting from a defined role in the Hawks rotation (1-0, 1.35), and Kameron Loe bounced back from a rough first start against a hot-hitting Rakuten team by giving up 2 earned runs (4 total, though), and he ate up 7 innings.

More things to worry about are the middle of the order. While Matsunaka has been hitting at a .333 clip with three home runs so far, Kokubo seems to be striking out more every day and he's only batting .238, and there is no defined #6 hitter.

Other concerns with hitters come with super-sub outfielder Hiroshi Shibahara, who is still without a hit this season. Another outfielder, foreign import Chris Aguila, is batting .091, reserve catcher Hidenori Tanoue is hitting .056, and other subs still have no hits to their credit.

Outfielder Yuya Hasegawa, who batted .235 in 71 games last season, seems poised to fill the void left by the perpetually-injured Hitoshi Tamura, but we'll see. Like many rookies last season, Hasegawa started hot, then couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Hasegawa is currently batting a red-hot .344. Other youngsters who are going above and beyond include (usually) light-hitting catcher Hiroaki Takaya is hitting .296, 4th-year second baseman Yuichi Honda is hitting at a blistering .370, and while Kawasaki is batting only .265, he has been hitting better as of late.

Finally, let's mention the Hawks ever-longer stretch of injuries. Hitoshi Tamura and Shotaro Ide are both on the ni-gun roster, Kazumi Saitoh has suffered some setbacks in his rehab, and Nobuhiro Matsuda broke his finger fielding a pickoff move. If SoftBank can get all of these guys back and producing, then the Hawks will be a much tougher team to beat.

One final thing that would make the Hawks tougher to beat is something I expressed a lot last season, and that is mental toughness. Too often the Hawks seem to give up on themselves, and if they get down by more than three runs or so, they seem to give up on themselves. Akiyama-kantoku would be well-served to get the team together and make sure that they never say die.

Here are scores from the last five games:
April 10th: Hawks 1 - 9 Fighters
April 11th: Hawks 0 - 9 Fighters
April 12th: Hawks 5 - 4 Fighters
April 14th: Hawks 3 - 5 Lions
April 15th: Hawks 2 - 2 Lions

SoftBank closes out their 3-game series against the Lions tomorrow at Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome. Kenji Ohtonari opposes veteran Fumiya Nishiguchi.