This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
The things I viewed from the past two months are this:
Hanshin should be winning the division by 10 games right now. Their pitching is better, their lineup is more balanced, and they have a great bullpen. They seem to play down to the level of competition (or up). I don't know why they aren't cleaning up against the bottom 3 more. Maybe they will kick it up in September, but right now Chunichi is in a dangerous position (1.5 back with 4 games to make up).
I don't know which Chunichi pitching staff is going to show up - Kawakami has been more effective lately, but this season he's thrown in a couple of stinkers. Our bullpen has been good, but I think there has been too much mileage. The offense hasn't been bad, and Tyrone has been huge. (.317, 30 home runs). If Chunichi wins and he keeps putting up these numbers, he's the CL MVP.
Hanshin needs to start sweeping Yomiuri and Hiroshima.