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Dragons gear up for title defense, playoff may shake up CL
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TOKYO, March 28 (23:32) Kyodo
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The Chunichi Dragons will look to defend their Central League
title and to break their 53-year Japan Series jinx as the CL opens
the 2007 season on Friday.
But even if the Dragons hold off rivals such as the Hanshin
Tigers and finish the regular season at the top of the ladder, they
still have to win the league's first-ever playoffs to reach the
biggest stage in Japanese baseball.
Baseball fans will get to watch the battle for the top three
spots, and then the league playoff winner -- even a third-place team
whose winning percentage may be below .500 in the regular season --
will advance to the Japan Series.
The CL is set to have a three-team, two-stage playoff system
that has gained Pacific League fan support after the Japan Series
champions of the past three years turned out to be all from the PL,
which launched the system in 2004.
CL underdogs such as the Hiroshima Carp and the Yokohama
BayStars, who ended fifth and sixth last year, will want to take
advantage of the introduction of the ''Climax Series.''
In the CL, no club has won back-to-back league titles since the
Yakult Swallows in 1992 and 1993. Most pitchers of the champion teams
have won fewer games in the season following their league victory.
Chunichi right-hander Kenshin Kawakami, who led the league with
17 wins last season, and 41-year-old left-hander Masahiro Yamamoto
were solid in preseason outings, but other starters such as Kenta
Asakura, a 13-game winner in 2006, and Kenichi Nakata, who was 7-4
last season, were shaky.
Masafumi Hirai was expected to be the No. 5 starter, but will
miss the start of the season with a right shoulder injury and try to
return by the end of April.
Meanwhile, Chunichi manager Hiromitsu Ochiai has complete trust
in two-time batting champion Kosuke Fukudome and three-time home run
king Tyrone Woods.
Fukudome led the league with a .351 batting average and Woods
with 47 homers and 144 RBIs last season.
In addition, two talented position players -- South Korean
outfielder Lee Byung Kyu and former Orix Buffaloes third baseman
Norihiro Nakamura -- joined the team that has not won the Japan
Series since 1954 while claiming the league title six times since
that year.
Lee helped South Korea make a strong run at the World Baseball
Classic in March 2006 leading off the lineup and had 1,435 hits in 10
seasons in his country.
Nakamura, once one of the highest-paid players in Japanese
baseball, had to undergo a team tryout with Chunichi at spring
training in Okinawa after his contract talks broke down with Orix,
which tried to cut 60 percent off his estimated annual salary of 200
million yen.
The 33-year-old slugger is now expected to start at third base
in Chunichi's season opener against Yakult. He will try to rebound
from a disappointing 2006 season hit by a wrist injury.
''I can't see any other team except my team finishing first in
the regular season,'' Ochiai said in a preseason reception hosted by
the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper in Nagoya on Tuesday.
''I believe the second- or third-place team doesn't deserve to
play in the Japan Series, so we'll make no mistakes in defending our
league title and advance to the series.''
Hanshin is still a serious threat to Chunichi even after the
departure of left-hander Kei Igawa to the New York Yankees.
Third baseman Makoto Imaoka underwent surgery on his chronic
finger injury and was limited to 59 games last season after leading
the team to the league title in 2005 with 147 RBIs, the third most in
a single season in Japanese baseball history.
He is expected to return to the heart of the lineup consisting
of Andy Sheets and Tomoaki Kanemoto, who drove in 173 runs between
them.
Shortstop Takashi Toritani appeared more confident than ever at
the plate in preseason games. He hit .385, the second best behind
Yakult outfielder Norichika Aoki (.451).
With the offense and the bullpen highly dependable, performances
by starting pitchers are expected to decide Hanshin's fate.
Manager Akinobu Okada hopes Atsushi Nomi, Hirotaka Egusa and
rookie Tatsuya Kojima, all left-handed, will step up to fill a huge
hole left by Igawa, who went 14-9 in 2006 for his fifth consecutive
season with double-digit wins. Nomi was 2-4 and Egusa 5-6.
Veteran lefty Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi and Esteban Yan, who has a
33-39 career record with a 5.14 ERA in 11 major league seasons, are
expected to be key members in the rotation.
Player-manager Atsuya Furuta's Yakult also lost a star player to
the major leagues in the offseason.
Tampa Bay Devil Rays third baseman Akinori Iwamura hit .311 with
32 homers and 77 RBIs in 145 games last season for Yakult. He is also
a six-time Golden Glove winner.
Ryuji Miyade, Hirobumi Watarai and Kazuhiro Hatakeyama are
competing to take over Iwamura's spot at third base.
Rookie right-hander Tatsuyoshi Masubuchi will likely fill out
the back end of the starting rotation, joining left-handers Kazuhisa
Ishii, Masanori Ishikawa, Shugo Fujii and right-hander Seth
Greisinger.
Leadoff hitter Aoki aims to collect 200 hits for the second time
in three years. Seattle Mariners star Ichiro Suzuki is the only other
player in Japanese baseball to have had a 200-hit season, a record
210 hits for the 1994 Orix BlueWave.
The Yomiuri Giants will try to end a club-worst four-year
titleless drought, boosted by new signings Michihiro Ogasawara, Luis
Gonzalez and Yoshitomo Tani.
Ogasawara is expected to take the No. 3 spot in the batting
order as he did in the 2006 Japan Series-winning Nippon Ham Fighters.
With South Korean slugger Lee Seung Yeop batting cleanup and
Gonzalez showing his ability to adjust to Japanese baseball, Yomiuri
is less worried about the offense, but has to start the season
without two injured starting pitchers, Koji Uehara (hamstring) and
Jeremy Powell (knee).
Hiroshima expects ace Hiroki Kuroda to have another impressive
season after he went 13-6 with a league-best 1.85 ERA in 26 starts,
seven of them complete games, in 2006.
Determining the team's fate will be other starters such as Kan
Otake (6-13 in 2006) and knuckleballer Jared Fernandez, who spent
much of the 2006 season with the Milwaukee Brewers' Triple-A
Nashville while making four mound appearances for the Brewers with no
decisions.
Hiroshima's all-Japanese batting lineup featuring Tomonori Maeda
and Takahiro Arai appears as dangerous as that of Chunichi or Hanshin.
Maeda is 94 hits shy of reaching 2,000 career hits. Arai led the
league with 43 homers two years ago.
Yokohama was one of the most active clubs in Japan in trading
players after a disappointing 2006 season.
The BayStars acquired 43-year-old lefty Kimiyasu Kudo from
Yomiuri as compensation for losing free agent right-hander Ken
Kadokura.
Kudo will open his 26th season in the starting rotation led by
right-hander Daisuke Miura.
Hayato Terahara, who joined the Yokohama club in an offseason
trade with outfielder Hitoshi Tamura, has all but secured a spot in
the rotation.
Yokohama has also acquired second baseman Toshihisa Nishi from
Yomiuri, and he is expected to form the top two spots in the lineup
with shortstop Takuro Ishii. |
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