The Rakuten Eagles announced today that they decided to hold on to Darrell Rasner (30), Kelvin Jimenez (31), and Luis Garcia (33).

Rasner will be paid 100M yen in 2012, Jimenez 65M yen, and Garcia 50M yen.

The Rakuten Eagles decided to exercise their 2012 option on Darrell Rasner on Saturday.  The option will be a one year deal worth 100M yen.

A team official said to reporters, "He should us he can close games this year and we also know he can start.  He's making better adjustments to Japanese baseball each year and we expect good things from him next year."

Darrell Rasner, Ryan Speier, Luis Garcia all left Japan on Thursday -- Rasner and Speier to the US and Garcia to Mexico.

There's mention that Rasner might try his luck at a return to the Majors next year without much on Speier or Garcia.

The Eagles announced today that both Akinori Iwamura and Darrell Rasner returned to Miyagi in order to get checked out at hospitals in Sendai -- Rasner felt tightness in his right hamstring during practice on the 16th and will be examined today; Iwamura needs additional tests on his left flank region (his test last night revealed no damage to the bones) and will be examined on the 19th (another report mentions the 20th).

While Iwamura was taken off the active roster today, the Eagles will wait to decide on Rasner until they find out more about what's wrong with him.

Darrell Rasner left today's game against the Chiba Lotte Marines with an injury to his right leg -- he tweaked the leg while going after a 1-out bunt by Shota Ishimine in the first inning.

Rasner was checked out at a hospital in Chiba and was diagnosed with a minor strain in his right adductor muscle that'll require 2-3 weeks for a full recovery.

The Rakuten Eagles announced that Randy Ruiz and Darrell Rasner left for their respective homes out of Narita airport earlier today.  No word on when they'll return.

This post will be updated throughout the day.

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Today's practice game against the Yakult Swallows:

The Swallows won the game, 5-2.

Hiroshi Katayama started the game and allowed 2 runs on 4 hits over 5 innings of work.  Katayama started losing steam after throwing about 50 pitches.

Akinori Iwamura started at third and batted 5th.  With the game tied at one, Iwamura drove in the go-ahead run when he hit a single to center with runners on first and third and 2 out in the 3rd inning.  Iwamura struck out swinging in his first at bat of the game.

Eagles' pitchers surrendered three homers.

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Darrell Rasner may have secured the fourth spot in the starting rotation with his performance against the the Samsung Lions yesterday.

5:06pm JST

According to Sponichi, Rasner and Ruiz will be making 70M yen next year while Morillo will be making 20M yen.

12:03pm JST

The Rakuten Eagles announced today that they will be signing Darrell Rasner, Juan Morillo, and Randy Ruiz to contract extensions for the 2011 season.  All three players apparently made it to the hold-over list (次年度契約保留選手名簿).

The Rakuten Eagles will apparently give their last home game start to rookie Yasunori Kikuchi (9/29 vs Seibu).  Kikuchi made his first (and so far only) Ichi-gun start of his career on the 23rd against the Seibu Lions and also recorded his first victory with a solid performance (5 IP, 21 BF, 2 H, 1 HR, 6 SO, 3 BB, 1 HBP, 1 R, 1 ER).

Might very well be the best way to end a season that has been somewhat disappointing (although not altogether a surprise) for Eagles' fans.

In other team-related pitching news:

The Eagles announced that Darrell Rasner returned to the US on the 27th since he won't be used over the team's final 2 games of the season.

Darrell Rasner has won his last two consecutive starts in fairly convincing fashion.  Here's a closer look at some of his seasonal stats so far:

And over his last three starts:

Here are some other, potentially interesting numbers (* denotes win/loss record in games where Rasner did not get a decision in):

A breakdown of runs scored and wins - losses (numbers in parentheses indicates results in games Rasner did not get a decision in):

A breakdown of runs allowed and wins - losses (numbers in parentheses indicates results in games Rasner did not get a decision in):

And a breakdown of record based on how long Rasner pitches into games(numbers in parentheses indicates results in games Rasner did not get a decision in):

So while it would seem that Rasner would win more games based on a quick glance at RA and RS, a closer look reveals that in 6 of the 15 games Rasner started this year, the offense scored 2 or fewer runs 6 times.  Since Rasner allows about 3.1 total runs per start, it makes sense that he has lost all 6 of those games.

Rasner and the Eagles are also undefeated when the offense scores 6 or more runs.

Here are a couple of graphs that I thought might be of some interest:

I see it as a positive sign that his H/9 and BB/9 have dropped while his K/9 has increased.  While it isn't shown here, his WHIP (season high of 2.11 down to 1.32) and BABIP (season high of .400 down to .299) have also dropped steadily over the course of the season.

All of this point to Rasner having, at the very least, a decent second-half -- he probably won't blow anyone away, but he should hold his own.  He should also be able to rack up a couple more wins if the Eagles' offense can score some more runs for him.