Central League

Pacific League

Inter-league

* up to date as of 7/29/2010, 10:31pm JST

Marc Kroon got his left hamstring checked out at a hospital on Thursday and his tests came back negative.  Still, he did tell reporters that he felt some tightness and pain in the area.  To that end, Kroon was not available to pitch Thursday night -- the Giants will likely spend the next couple of days observing how his hamstring is doing.

Yoshinori Sato topped out at 158km/h tonight (twice) and tied the Japanese player speed gun record.  He also became the youngest Japanese pitcher to hit the mark.

Yoshinori hit 158km/h in the first and third innings; Jun Hirose was in the batter's box both times.

Yoshinori also finished the night with his first complete game of his career.

The Marines announced today that they upgraded Ikusei player Koshiro Yamamuro's contract.  Yamamuro gets a contract worth 3M yen and a signing bonus of 4.4M yen.  He was also assigned the number 57 (from the number 121).

The game between the Nippon Ham Fighters and Orix Buffaloes was canceled due to rain tonight, but not before the two teams were able to play partway through the first inning.

The starting line-up for the Fighters did not include Shinji Takahashi.  Takahashi batted a ball off his left foot last night.  He took part in pre-game batting practice today, but the team wanted to play it safe and gave him the night off.

The newest reports reveal that Yusei Kikuchi was indeed the target of Hiromoto Okubo's abuse.  While Kikuchi was not named in the report that the Lions made public earlier today, someone with the club (perhaps a leak) made it known to the press.

It also seems that earlier reports of Okubo getting upset that a player snitched on his methods of punishing for tardiness were true: someone reported to the Lions' player's association that Okubo was handing out big fines to to tardy players.  The player's union then approached Okubo and ask him to stop.  Okubo assumed that it was Kikuchi that reported him and apparently became violent with him.  Exactly what he did was not released to the public.

The Lions held a press conference earlier today to announce that their internal investigations revealed that Ni-gun batting coach Hiromoto Okubo resorted to violence in his coaching methods and that they were officially dismissing him from the team for that reason.

The Chiba Lotte Marines announced yesterday that they were not going to sign Keiichi Yabu after giving him a 2-day tryout.  Seems there was some concern about being able to use him on back-to-back days after his velocity went from 146km/h on his first day to 136km/h on his second day.

But that might spell good news for the Hanshin Tigers -- they also have interest in Yabu, but not as a player.  It seems the Tigers might be ready to offer Yabu a position in the front office should he decide to call it quits.  The Tigers like the experience Yabu has racked up over the years, both as a player in the Majors and in the NPB, and feel he has the ability to help the club out from the front office.

The Museum of Hanshin Koshien Stadium announced earlier today that they hit the 100,000 mark in visitors after just 4 and a half months of being in operation.

Incidentally, the 100,000th visitor was a 9 year old kid from Kobe who was visiting the museum with his family and some friends.  For being the 100,000th visitor, the museum awarded the kid with tickets to a Hanshin game in September and a photo opp with Tiger mascot To-Lucky.

Games from the 28th:

Red Sox 7 - Angels 3
Hideki Matsui started in left and batted fifth.  He went 0-for-2: walk, ground out to first, ground out to first.  Matsui was lifted in the 7th on defense.

White Sox 6 - Mariners 5
Ichiro Suzuki started in right and batted first.  He went 2-for-5: single to right, single to left, E5, ground out to second, foul out to third.

Blue Jays 5 - Orioles 0
Koji Uehara entered the game in the 8th, with the Orioles down 1-0, and gave up a run over 0.2 innings of work.  Final line: 0.2 IP, 3 BF, 1 H, 0 SO, 0 BB, 1 R, 1 ER.

Astros 8 - Cubs 1
Kosuke Fukudome started in right and batted sixth.  He went 0-for-2: walk, strikeout looking, fly out to left, walk.

Padres 6 - Dodgers 1
Hiroki Kuroda started a the game and gave up 3 runs over 6 innings of work for his 9th loss of the year.  Kuroda is now 8-9 on the year.  Final line: 6 IP, 25 BF, 4 H, 5 SO, 3 BB, 3 R, 3 ER.

Cardinals 8 - Mets 7
Hisanori Takahashi entered the game in the 7th and tossed a shutout inning in relief.  Final line: 1 IP, 3 BF, 0 H, 2 SO, 0 BB, 0 R, 0 ER.

Takahashi is also scheduled for a start on the 31st.

===

Kei Igawa gave up 2 runs (both earned) in a 3 inning relief outing (that began in the 4th inning) against the triple-A Norfolk Tides on the 28th.  He did not factor into the final decision.  Final line: 51 (34) NP (S), 13 BF, 4 IP, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 SO, 0 HR.

===

Kazuo Matsui went 1-for-5 with a strikeout and an RBI against the triple-A Sacramento River Cats on the 28th.  He started at short and batted second.

===

Akinori Iwamura went 1-for-1 against the triple-A Syracuse Chiefs on the 28th.  Iwamura started at third and batted second.  He was replaced by a pinch-runner after he ran into one of the fielders while legging out an infield single in his first at bat.

===

The Red Sox announced on the 28th that Junichi Tazawa had his right elbow examined on 26th to check on his progress.  Seems everything was good and Tazawa will likely begin a throwing program early next month (August).