Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Something New

Sorry I haven't been by to give you anything new recently, but I'm back. Today's item is a congratulations to Masahiro Tanaka of Rakuten on his 1st professional win. Tanaka is the ultra-famous and super-gifted rookie who led Komadai Tomakomai High School to three consecutive Summer Koshien title games, winning the 1st two before succumbing to Yuki Saito in 2006.

Tanaka has been shaky in his first three starts, combining for:

14.2 IP
16 hits
11 walks
15 K
10 ER
6.34 ERA
1.841 WHIP
1.36 K/BB
9.20 K/9

The biggest problem for the talented young righty has been the lack of control that has added 11 baserunners by free pass. That's just beating yourself. Tonight was a different story against the potent SoftBank Hawks. Tanaka produced a gem with the following line:

9 IP
9 hits
1 walk
13 K
2 ER

He lowered his ERA to 4.56 and boosted the K/BB ratio from 1.36 to 2.33. The K-rate also rose from 9.20 (which is already impressive) to 10.65! If he can string together a few more of those outings, he'll be on his way. Nice to get the first one under your belt though. Congrats again kiddo!

1 Comments:

At 8:46 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi, I live in Sakai (tigers area), and wondered if you have any thoughts on their reliever Fujikawa. He has always impressed me much more than Igawa. Do you think he can make it in MLB and if he has any intentions of going over?

 

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