According to Nikkan Sports, the Chiba Lotte Mariners are looking into former Softbank Hawk Jose Ortiz (34).  Lotte feels Ortiz might be able to help fill their power needs.  They also feel comfortable about his established presence.

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Team official Nobuhira Hayashi told reporters on Saturday that the team is prepared to give up compensation to the Yomiuri Giants for signing Saburo.

A number of sources, including Nikkan Sports, Sanspo, and Sponichi, are reporting that D.J. Houlton will become a free agent.  The Softbank Hawks will continue to negotiate with Houlton but there is also a good chance that he will be approached by other teams.

As for the other foreign players: Alex Cabrera and Brian Falkenborg will remain with the team while Jose Ortiz and Yhency Brazoban move on.

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2011 Season - D.J. Houlton

D.J. Houlton (US), Brian Falkenborg (US), Jose Ortiz (US/Dominican Republic), Alex Cabrera (Venezuela), and Yhency Brazoban (Dominican Republic) all left for their respective homes today.

Before leaving, Houlton spoke to reporters and said, "If the terms are good, there is no doubt that this (Fukuoka) is where I want to return."

Falkenborg and Cabrera are expected to remain with the team; Ortiz and Brazoban are likely on their way out.

Nikkan Sports reports that unless 34-year-old Jose Ortiz takes a fairly big pay cut, he most likely won't be returning with the team next season.  With Alex Cabrera still under contract (he signed a 2-year deal before the start of the 2011 season) and the Hawks already looking into other foreign alternatives, Ortiz's days in a Softbank uniform may be numbered.

Sponichi is reporting that based on comments from people close to Tsuyoshi Wada and Munenori Kawasaki, the two will likely exercise their international FA options.  A person close to the team also mentioned that Jose Ortiz probably won't return next year.

Not much is known about what Toshiya Sugiuchi will do.

Jose Ortiz was taken off the active roster today due to pain in his left flank.  Ortiz was hit by a pitch in the area during last night's game against the Chunichi Dragons (Wei-Ying Chen on the mound).

UPDATE @ 10:25pm - Ortiz was actually checked out at a hospital in Nagoya last night, but with no improvement in his condition, he'll be getting checked out again at a hospital in Fukuoka.

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FYI: Tsuyoshi Wada was also taken off the active roster today.  Not for any injury, but because he's not scheduled to pitch any more during Inter-league play.

Jose Ortiz was taken off the active roster today with a left hamstring strain / tear.   Ortiz suffered the injury while running the bases in yesterday's game against the Nippon Ham Fighters.

Both Jose Ortiz and Hiroki Kokubo left today's game against the Nippon Ham Fighters early with various bumps and bruises.

Ortiz was taken out in the bottom of the 2nd inning with discomfort in his left hamstring.  Ortiz apparently tweaked the hamstring while trying to stretch out a single into a double in the the top of the 2nd inning.

Kokubo was hit by a pitch on his right wrist in the top of the 3rd inning and was removed from the game before the bottom of the 4th inning.

No further information has been released at this time.

This post will be updated throughout the day.

===== 2/5 @ 11:38pm

Jose Ortiz has been working out under a different training menu as he makes his way back from right knee surgery he had during off-season.  Today, Ortiz took 58 swings during outdoor BP and hit 7 over the fence.

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Kenji Otonari threw 23 pitches to a sitting catcher today.  Otonari joined the team in Miyazaki today after a delayed start due to the flu.

===== 2/5 @ 9:09pm

NPB commissioner Ryozo Kato dropped by the Hawks' camp in Miyazaki today.

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Team director Itaru Kobayashi made an appearance as a BP pitcher today.  Kobayashi spent about 30 minutes throwing pitches to Toru Hosokawa and Yuya Hasegawa.

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Hiroki Kokubo spent about 2 hours on his day off taking care of his body (a recovery day): he spent loosening up his muscles in the team hotel pool before doing some stretching exercises.  Kokubo plans on taking 1-2 of these throughout the course of the season as a means to stave off serious injury.

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The Hawks apparently want Yuki Yanagita (2nd round) to work on his flexibility.

This post will be updated throughout the day.

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Munenori Kawasaki, Toshiya Suigiuchi, Seiichi Uchikawa, and Keiji Nakahara visited Akae Matsubara Special Needs School after practice today.

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Players and coaches working out on the secondary field (mostly running and various strengthening exercises) wore masks on Wednesday due to the ash in the air.  The coaches also told the players that masks would continue to be used during exercises on the secondary field moving forward.

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Hitoshi Tamura started early morning workouts on Wednesday -- he arrived at the stadium at around 8am and spent over an hour doing various strengthening exercises.  He also stood in the batter's box during bullpen sessions to help him get re-acquainted to live pitching.

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Sugiuchi threw 58 pitches in the bullpen on Wednesday.  Sugiuchi is trying not to throw more than 500 pitches during spring camp this year in order to preserve his strength for the season.  Last year, Sugiuchi threw 549 total pitches.  To put that into perspective, the rest of the team averaged about 1,000 pitches during spring camp; Shota Oba led all pitchers with 1,534; Takahiro Mahara threw the least at 529.

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Tsuyoshi Wada threw 46 pitches to a squatting catcher on Wednesday.

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Oba worked with special temporary pitching coach Kazuhiro Takeda on Wednesday.

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Yuki Shimooki popped a blister on his right middle finger on Wednesday and couldn't do anything throwing practice.  He instead did some shadow pitching under the supervision of pitching coach Ikuo Takayama.  Takayama also wasn't too happy about the blister and questioned Shimooki on what it was he did during the break.

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Jose Ortiz started taking BP in the cages on Wednesday.  Still no timetable for when he'll be able to rejoin the rest of the team for regular practice.

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Alex Cabrera took 57 swings of the bat during BP on Wednesday and hit 4 over the fence.  Regarding the new baseball, Cabrera told reporters that the ball felt a little heavy, not during BP, but when throwing the ball.

During batting practice today, Cabrera took 46 swings and hit 10 over the fence (including 4 in row).  He later told reporters that he wasn't swinging for the fences and was just trying to swing the bat the way he wanted to.

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Uchikawa took two kinds of soft toss BP yesterday: the first involves hitting the ball while making the figure 8 with his bat; and the second is hitting the ball after it bounces once on the ground.  For those interested, his methods (6 in all) were actually documented by Nippon TV's Going! Sports & News program.  There's a version of it up at YouTube.  Don't know how long it'll last though.

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Hiroki Kokubo tested his home batting gloves on the first day of camp and his road batting gloves on the second day of camp (Wednesday).

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Shuhei Fukuda showed up at the Saitozaki training facilities on Wednesday after being sent down due to an injury (right hamstring strain).  Kazumi Saito told reporters he wanted to find some time to talk to Fukuda to make sure he wasn't too down about his injury.