Here are some easy to use links to various posts about Spring camp that have been posted at Yakyu Baka.

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Below are links to the Spring camp photos Sanspo is posting.  If by chance any of you visiting here have taken any Spring camp photos, drop me a line (news at yakyubaka.com) with a link to them and I'll be more than happy to add it to the list below.

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...Nobuhiro Matsuda faced Koji Mise during BP on Monday.  He took 21 swings and recorded 10 could-be hits, including 3 that went over the fence.

...Nobuhiko Matsunaka took soft toss BP on Monday and will likely move to long soft toss BP on Tuesday.

...Bum-Ho Lee took grounders at third during extra practice after general practice on Monday but did not make any throws to first due to tightness in his right shoulder.  He later told reporters that there was no pain involved and that it wasn't a big deal.

Early during BP, Lee faced Shinsuke Ogura and recorded 3 could-be hits (no home runs) on 15 swings.  He appeared to be late on quite a few swings.

...Soichiro Tateoka received some coaching help from Sadaharu Oh on Monday during soft-toss BP.  Tateoka apparently needs to work on hitting the ball out in front more.

...After his bullpen session on Monday, Tatsumi Shingo sat down with Koji Akiyama and compared footage from his bullpen session with footage of Toshiya Sugiuchi and Tadashi Settsu.  After watching the footage, Shingo was told that he needed to work more on his weight transfer during his delivery.

...Yasushi Kamiuchi threw 47 pitches during BP on Monday.  He faced Yuya Hasegawa and Tomoaki Egawa.  He didn't give up any could-be hits but did apparently throw 29 balls.

...Nagisa Arakaki threw 48 pitches during his bullpen session on Monday.

...Oh appears to be pleased with the way things are going for the Hawks during Spring camp so far.

...Takumi Kuriyama is working on a one-legged batting stance that he plans on using during exhibition games.

...Kimiyasu Kudo is scheduled to hold a bullpen session on Tuesday.

...Yusei Kikuchi is scheduled to be back at Spring camp on the evening of the 11th.  The club is apparently keeping his itinerary to and from Hanamaki Higashi under wraps (I suppose for Kikuchi's safety).

Kikuchi could also be making an appearance in the manga Dokaben Superstars, just like Daisuke Matsuzaka did years ago.

...The special sunglasses Taketoshi Goto wore on Monday are called Dynamic Vision Training Glasses.  You can get more information about them at the official site.

...19 members of the Taiyo Yuden softball team visited Lions' camp on Tuesday (or Monday?).

...The Eagles' rotation for the Orix 3-game series will likely go Hisashi Iwakuma, Masahiro Tanaka, and Satoshi Nagai.  The following 2-game series at Kleenex Stadium against the Lions will feature Iwakuma and Tanaka.

...The Eagles apparently have a mascot for Marty Brown: the Baby-Brown.

...Masahiro Tanaka threw 70 pitches (Sponichi mentions 80) to a squatting catcher during his bullpen session on Monday.  It was his third bullpen session of Spring camp.  He also threw 13 curves.

...Hisashi Iwakuma threw 81 pitches during his bullpen session on Monday.

...Kazuo Fukumori faced four batters (including Teppei and Norihiro Nakamura) during BP on Monday and threw 33 pitches and gave up only 2 could-be hits.

...Yataro Sakamoto threw 59 pitches (Sanspo mentions 47) during BP on Monday and faced Yoshiyuki Kuwahara and Tatsuya Shimozono.  Sakamoto surrendered 6 could-be hits (Nikkan Sports mentions 5) to the two batters.  Takao Obana is thinking of using Sakamoto as a set-up man to closer candidate Chris Bootcheck.

...Gee, didn't see this coming: Shun Yamaguchi refrained from playing catch on Monday due to tightness in his back.  Instead he had the area massaged and iced.

...Terrmel Sledge collected 23 could-be hits during his BP session on Monday.

...Kazuya Fujita stayed back after general practice to face Obana during BP and took 200 swings over a period of about 25 minutes, focusing mainly on pitches on the inside corner.  Fujita is also working on making a switch over to short.

=== 3:28pm JST

...The Buffaloes officially announced on Tuesday that George Foster joined the front office as a US-based foreign player scout advisor.

...Akinobu Okada caught Toru Anan's bullpen session on Monday and was pleased with what he saw, especially his forkball.  And it seems Anan can throw a couple of different kinds.

...The Eagles have an advanced scout checking up on So Taguchi (and likely the rest of the team) during Spring camp.  The two teams will play three games against each other to start the regular season.

=== 2/9/2010 10:51am JST

...Akinobu Okada recommended golf to his players for their day off.

...The intra-squad game set to take place Tuesday afternoon was pushed up to a 10am start due to rain in the forecast.

...Yu Darvish threw 78 pitches (while also working on his pick-off move) during his bullpen session on Monday.  He also had the help of umpire calls during his session.  Darvish told reporters that he's feeling great and that things were moving along smoothly.

...Sho Nakata worked on his fielding for about 1.5 hours after Monday's intra-squad game.  That's 30 minutes working with OF coach Masaji Shimizu, about 40 minutes flagging down balls in left during BP, and then about 20 more minutes with Shimizu (lecture).

...Hayato Sakamoto took 15 swings against Norihito Kaneto during BP on Monday and recorded 5 could-be hits.

...Hisayoshi Chono could make his debut during an intra-squad 6-inning Group B game on the 13th.  Tatsunori Hara told reporters that he will be sending a number of Group A players to that game and that Chono could be one of them.

...Tetsuya Utsumi threw his new cutter a few times during BP on Monday.  He told reporters that he was happy with the early results.

...Kyohei Tsuchimoto threw 26 pitches (all fastballs) to Ryota Wakiya (no could-be hits) and 20 pitches (including his fork) to Yoshiyuki Kamei (just the home run) on Monday.

...Dicky Gonzalez held his second bullpen session on Monday and threw 78 pitches.  He also managed to work in 10 of his slow change-ups for the first time during Spring camp.  It wouldn't be the first time he's tinkered with a slow change.  He originally picked it up from Swallows' pitching coach Tomohisa Ito back in 2006.  In 2007, he had elbow surgery and decided to stop throwing the pitch.  While Gonzalez doesn't think he hurt his arm throwing the slower change, he did tell reporters that the pitch places a little more strain on his elbow because his fingers are short.

...Randy Messenger held a bullpen session with Kenji Johjima behind the plate on Monday (their first such pairing during Spring camp).  He threw 6 pitches with Johjima standing and 46 (including his curve, cutter, and splitter) with him squatting.  Johjima told reporters that Messenger made some good pitches and jokingly said that he was throwing better in Japan.

...Masanori Fujihara threw 10 pitches to Johjima during a bullpen session on Monday and had some trouble with his grip.  Seems he was a little nervous pitching with Johjima catching him for the first time and overthrew a little.

...Kazuhito Futagami threw a bullpen session on Monday but wasn't happy with the results.  He'll be throwing situational BP on Tuesday.

...Casey Fossum didn't throw any pitches on Monday and instead worked on fielding drills involving signs.  He later told reporters that he didn't throw a bullpen session because he did a lot of throwing during the fielding drills.

...As briefly mentioned early, Kenji Johjima made 9 practice throws to first from his knees to warm-up his arm prior to situational fielding practice on Monday.  Akinobu Mayumi covered first base for Johjima.

...Takahiro Arai stayed back after general practice on Monday and hit the batting cages.  Earlier in the day, Arai took 82 swings during lunch-time BP and took another 42 swings during regular BP.  In the batting cages after general practice, Arai swung the bat for about an hour, recording the entire session for later reviewing.

...Matt Murton faced Ikketsu Sho during BP on Monday.  It was Murton's first BP with a pro-level pitcher and according to Sponichi, he didn't look very good facing him.  Murton told reporters that he was glad to have a chance to face a real live arm and he knows he still needs to work on his timing.

It was an unscheduled appearance for  Sho.

Murton ended up taking 15 swings (on 22 pitches) while recording 7 could-be hits.

Interestingly enough, Sponichi made Murton's performance sound bad while Sanspo seemed to take a slightly more conservative approach.

Thought I'd keep an updated list of opening day starters for the 2010 season.

Numbers in parentheses indicate consecutive years

...Yusuke Matsui, Yohei Ohshima, and Masato Matsui spent their day off relaxing at the beach.