gaijinmark wrote:Angels beat KC 7-0 to win their 7th in a row. To give you an idea how awful their season has been, even with the win the Halos are still 5 games under .500. For awhile there I really thought Scioscia would be out of a job by Memorial Day. Looks like he's safe for the time being.
Last night Kuroda pitched 7 innings, gave up 4 hits, no runs, struck out 7, but Mariano Rivera had his first blown save of the year as the Mets came back and won 2-1.
Iwakuma's last start against Texas he went 8 innings, gave up 5 hits, 2 runs, struck out 8 but it took 13 innings for Seattle to win 4-3.
Darvish against Arizona on Monday went 7 2/3, gave up 4 runs but struck out 14, left with the game tied and Arizona won 5-4.
Rookie Yasiel Puig hits a three-run and two-run homer in his second major league game and the Dodgers beat the Padres, 9-7. :applaud: :applaud: :applaud:
Looks like Hisashi Iwakuma has inherited the Kurse of Kuroda (no run support). Pitched eight innings of 3-hit shutout ball yesterday against the White Sox and left with the game tied 0-0. Nobody scored until the 15th inning when the Sox got 5 in the top of the 15th only to have Seattle come back with 5 of their own in the bottom of the inning. It ended up going 17 innings before the White Sox won 7-5.
A 17-inning game between two teams both 10 games under .500. I wonder if anybody was left in the stands watching at the end.
In Japan the players aren't juiced, the ball is. This time last year, there were 309 home runs in NPB, so far this season there have been 511. Now comes this:
TOKYO, June 12 (17:00) Kyodo
Nippon Professional Baseball said Wednesday it is preparing to respond to questions about why it secretly changed its uniform ball for the 2013 season.
NPB made the revelation in regards to a union demand on Tuesday for information about this year's ball. NPB had previously denied that this year's increase in home runs had anything to do with changes to the baseball.
"We are investigating the facts, confirming them and considering how to respond," said Katsuhisa Matsuzaki, NPB's director of public relations. "We will respond in some fashion."
Kunio Shimoda, NPB's secretary general, said Tuesday that the move was taken to make the ball conform to the rules, which use a figure known as the coefficient of restitution to measure a ball's liveliness.
"The change was made to bring the coefficient of restitution within the allowable range," said Shimoda, who said it became clear that balls in use through last season did not meet the standards in that respect.
Only two weeks into the start of the 2013 season, the marked increase in home runs raised eyebrows. At the time NPB denied any change and the ball's manufacturer Mizuno Corp. said the increase in home runs was primarily at domed stadiums and due to foreign batters hitting so many home runs.
Following Tuesday's news, a Mizuno spokesman said, "We are going to let NPB take the lead on this. At this juncture, we are not prepared to comment."
Meanwhile, over here, Iwakuma improved to 7-1 going 7 innings against Houston. Gave up 1 run (unearned) on just 4 hits and struck out 8. :applaud:
Last night Kuroda went 8 innings, left with the scored tied 2-2, Yankees lost to the A's in 18 innings 3-2. (On the bright side, Ichiro went 3-for-7 with a stolen base.)
Darvish went 7 innings against Toronto, left with the game tied 1-1, Rangers ended up losing 3-1. In his last four starts Darvish gone at least 7 innings every time out, given up a total of 8 runs, struck out 36 and has four straight no-decisions. :bonk:
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