Spring Training Stats

This is a hard one. Other than the box scores in Japanese that I'm putting up, there isn't any such list even in Japanese anywhere, including the daily newspapers. There's the combination of the pre-season not being viewed as important enough and that not even the regulars are regulars during pre-season.

The foreign player making headlines, though, has been Hanshin's Kinkade, who hit five home runs in five consecutive games. However, he hurt his shoulder diving for a ball up the third base line this past weekend, and is taking a few days to a week off to make sure he's fully recovered.

I'm afraid that Mullen and Mercado haven't made any memorable headlines, yet. I'll see what I can find of their progress after work today.

Once the season starts, Baseball Guru Gary Garland has stated that he'll be putting up English language box-scores. I'm afraid that you'll just have to wait another few weeks.

I've looked through today's newspaper and all of the past box scores so far, and only found one game that Mullen pitched in [Link]. If you really want to follow open-sen, then you need to learn how to read this.

Mullen is spelled "マレン" and is the first pitcher in the second table, throwing for Yokohama ("横浜"). The black dot (kuro-boshi - literally meaning "black star") to the left of his name means that he was the losing pitcher. To the right of his name is the Kanji "左" in a box, which means that he's a left-handed pitcher. You can read the numbers, so the categories, from left to right are: Wins, Losses, Saves, Games, Innings, Batters Faced, Pitches, Hits, Strike Outs, Walks, Hit Batsmen, Runs Given Up, Earned Runs, and ERA. Of those categories, the first four and last one are cumulative. Under his name, in parenthesis, is the team he was with before this year (if the player had changed teams). In this case, it says "Dodgers."

Mercado hasn't appeared any any pre-season games, yet.

There have been a number of fans over the years who have taught themselves how to read a little in order to follow their favorite player(s). I hope you'll consider challenge worth while and give it a try.

I'm afraid you will have to learn some japanese characters. Please visit this site: [Link - TBS Radio in Japanese].

You will see that Mercado (メルカド ) pitched one inning for the Hawks (ダイエー ) today against the Swallows. He also pitched one inning on March 4 against the BayStars, and one on March 7 against the Giants. With today he pitched total 3 innings (67 pitches, 6 hits, 3 strikeouts, 3 walks, era 9.00).

Try to learn (recognize) some Japanese characters and you will see that it is quite easy to follow the stats.

Good luck.

[Added links to box scores. Thanks for pointing those out.]

Thanks a lot! I just visited this site and it is just what I was looking for. (It's kind of fun "decoding" the Japanese characters, too.) From a new fan of Japanese baseball, I would like to add that this web site is phenomenal.

Bad news about Mullen. After getting roughed up for five runs on six hits and four walks in five innings of work on Friday against Lotte, including walking a run in, Yamashita-kantoku (Yokohama's manager) said that Mullen will have one more chance to earn a spot on the starting rotation before he gets sent down to ni-gun (the farm).

Not exactly the type of report you were hoping to hear, I'm sure. But that's what is being reported in Nikkan Sports, the daily newspaper that I read.