Japanese-American Perspectives

It appears as though the Chiba Lotte Marines are in the final stages of recommending Norifumi Nishimura (head coach) to replace Bobby Valentine next season as manager of the team. Sponichi goes further and says that the information was verified by a number of baseball people and that Yoshihiko Takahashi (batting coach) will likely become the manager of the Ni-gun team. The only thing that's needed now, apparently, is the seal of approval from team owner Takeo Shigemitsu.

If / when ...

Chunichi Dragons

...Dragons' manager Hiromitsu Ochiai probably summed up the Tigers season best with this short quote from Friday night:

"It's over for Hanshin. They have / had too many hurt players..."

Hanshin Tigers

...Ikketsu Sho joined the Ichi-gun team for practice on Saturday.

Softbank Hawks

...Nagisa Arakaki was diagnosed with inflammation in his right shoulder and won't be allowed to resume throwing practice until mid-August.

...

The results of the HR Derby:

Semifinals
Hiroyuki Nakajima 2 - Kenta Kurihara 2 (Kurihara advances base on the rules)
Takeya Nakamura 3 - Tony Blanco 2

Finals
Takeya Nakamura 6 - Kenta Kurihara 5

Awards from Game 2:

Top Player - 3M yen money prize
Nobuhiko Matsunaka (Softbank Hawks)

Best Batter - 1M yen money prize
Hirokazu Ibata (Chunichi Dragons)

Best Pitcher - 1M yen money prize
Chihiro Kaneko (Orix Buffaloes)

...

Mazda Stadium - Attendance: 30,866 - Time: 2h 49m

[table="head"]|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|R|H|E
Pacific League|0|1|0|1|1|2|0|0|2|7|12|0
Central League|1|1|0|1|0|0|0|0|1|4|11|0[/table]

Pacific League
[table="head"]|Pos|Player|AB|H|RBI|SO|BA|HR|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9
1|SS|Munenori Kawasaki |3|0|0|1|.000|0|FO|-|SO|-|GIDP|-|-|-|-
|SS|Hiroyuki Nakajima|2|1|1|0|.400|0|-|-|-|-|-|-|GO|-|H
2|2B|Tadahito Iguchi|2|0|0|0|.400|0|FO|-|FO|-|-|-|-|-|- ...

The starting line-ups for Game 2 of this year's All-Star Game.

Central League

Kan Ohtake (HIR) 6-4, 2.67

[table="head"]|Pos|Name|Team|Uni|PA|BA/SLG/OBP
1|SS|Hirokazu Ibata|CHU|6|398|.322/.405/.399
2|2B|Akihiro Higashide|HIR|2|344|.279/.329/.339
3|CF|Norichika Aoki|YAK|23|345|.249/.384/.365
4|DH|Tony Blanco|CHU|42|370|.295/.589/.354
5|LF|Tomoaki Kanemoto|HAN|6|355|.269/.481/.377
6|1B|Kenta Kurihara|HIR|5|324|.247/.401/.319 ...