...Marty Brown is currently thinking of using Darrell Rasner somewhere between the 4-6 spots in the starting rotation.

...The Eagles hope Wataru Karashima ends up becoming a starter for them somewhere down the road.  For now, he may be pitching his way onto the opening day staff as a left-handed option out of the pen.

=== 10:26pm JST

...Darrell Rasner may have given himself a boost after tossing 4 shutout innings against the Chunichi Dragons on Thursday.  While Rasner did walk two batters, he did not give up any hits.

=== 4:09pm JST

...Takeshi Yamasaki will be appearing in one of those BOSS Rainbow Mountain Blend commercials with Tommy Lee Jones (is there anything he can't do?).  If you have never seen them, I think you can see the latest commercial at the official Rainbow Mountain Blend website.

The new commercial is set to begin running nationwide on 3/17.

...The infield shift Marty Brown used against the Hiroshima Carp on Wednesday: he replaced left fielder Akihisa Makida with Tatsuya Shiokawa and positioned him in between the second baseman and shortstop.  He pulled center fielder Ryo Hijirisawa over to left and right fielder Teppei in center.  All this for lefty-hitting Go Kida, a batter Brown thought wouldn't be able to pull Juan Morillo's fastball.  Especially if he spotted them on the outside corners.

The plan ended up backfiring as Morillo threw a fastball insde that Kida was able to pull into right.  With no one there, the ball rolled all the way to the wall and cleared the bases for a triple.

While that was bad, the Eagles were actually making something of a comeback in the bottom of the 9th (they had scored two runs and still had the bases loaded with only one out) when the game was called due to rain and completely wiped out the 9th inning.

For those wondering why the 9th inning was thrown out...  According to rule 4.11d, subsection 2, if a visiting team grabs the lead in the top of the inning and the game is called while the home team is still batting and has not had the opportunity to either tie the game or re-take the lead, the innings is thrown out.  The last full inning is where the game officially ends.

Kind of a weird rule.

...As long as there are no rain cancellations or injuries, Hisashi Iwakuma will be pitching on Saturdays and Masahiro Tanaka on Sundays (at least until about mid-May).  Pitching coach Yoshinori Sato told reporters that there are currently no reasons for the rotation to fall out of a 6-day rest pattern for the foreseeable future.

It's also possible that the team jumbles things up a bit if the rest of the rotation doesn't perform well.

...Marty Brown will likely turn to Juan Morillo, Kazuo Fukumori, and Tsuyoshi Kawagishi for the final three innings of any game the team has a lead in.  It doesn't seem like an order has been set though.

...Takeshi Yamasaki told reporters after Wednesday's game that he's at about 70% right now.

...Juan Morillo's entrance music apparently came down to two choices: Saburo Kitajima's Matsuri and Ryoko Hirosue's Majide koi suru gobyo-mae.  In the end, Matsuri won out because of the beat and because of the meaning behind the word: matsuri means festival or celebration in Japan. Morillo becomes the first player on the Eagles to select enka music for his entrance music.

...Marty Brown continues to preach full swings for every player on the team.  The last thing Brown wants to see is his players taking weak hacks or checking their swings.

...Takeshi Yamasaki rejoined the Ichi-gun team on Tuesday.  Had the Eagles played a game on Tuesday, Yamasaki would have been the starting DH batting fourth.

...Rain man?  Koji Aoyama's start was washed out with the rain on Tuesday.  He will now be pitching in an Ikusei League game on the 10th against the Chiba Lotte Marines.  This is actually the second time a game he was set to pitch in was canceled: the first was on February 28th against the Yokohama Bay Stars.  Because of the two cancellations, Aoyama has not pitched in a game for about 2 weeks.

...The team worked out in the indoor training facilities at Skymark Stadium after they found out their game was canceled on Tuesday.

...Masahiro Tanaka's start on the 2/28 against the Yokohama Bay Stars was canceled due to a tsunami warning.  On Sunday, Tanaka pitched for the first time since taking the mound against the Chunichi Dragons on 2/23.  Considering the long time in between starts, he didn't do too poorly: he gave up 2 runs (all earned) on 7 hits and 2 walks over 5 innings.  Tanaka faced 20 batters, threw 78 pitches, and struck out two.

He told reporters that his out pitch (the fork) was getting too much of the plate and that he had a hard time nailing down the release point, all of which could have something to do with the 11 days in between starts.

Tanaka has only one more start left (vs Chiba Lotte Marines on the 14th) before the regular season.

...Hisashi Iwakuma will likely have just one more start (against the Yakult Swallows on the 13th) before the regular season.  He's hoping to throw about 100 pitches in that start.  He also started throwing more forkballs during his start on Saturday (Sponichi mentions 7).  Iwakuma has now thrown 8 consecutive scoreless innings (two starts).

...Marty Brown told reporters after Saturday's game that he is thinking of using Hiromichi Fujiwara somewhere in the rotation (4-6).

...Hisashi Iwakuma will be making an appearance in a TV spot (targeted for the Tohoku region) for NHK regarding their upcoming digital TV conversion.  NHK will be broadcasting similar TV spots throughout Japan using various personalities for each region; Iwakuma is the only sports personality they've hired (he's also apparently the first ever sports personality the company has hired for a TV spot like this).

The comedy duo of Sandwich-man will also be appearing in the Tohoku spot for NHK.  The spot is set to begin airing sometime next month.

Incidentally, Iwakuma tossed 5 shut-out innings, while scattering just 3 hits, against the Yokohama Bay Stars on Saturday.

...The Eagles held full-squad practice at Nagasaki Big N Stadium on Friday.  They will be playing two exhibition games against the Yokohama Bay Stars over the weekend in Nagasaki.  Marty Brown told reporters that the team is in great shape and has been fortunate enough to be relatively injury-free.  I guess Brown doesn't believe in jinxes.

...Satoshi Nagai threw about 60 pitches in the bullpen on Wednesday and is scheduled to start Thursday's exhibition game against the Softbank Hawks.

...Marty Brown closed the media off from practice for about an hour and a half on Wednesday in order to go over sign with players.

...Koji Matsui entered an Ikusei League game on Wendesday against the Chiba Lotte Marines as a pinch hitter and recorded his first hit.  With runners on first and third, Matsui managed to hit the ball through the left side of the infield for an RBI single.  Tetsuro Nishida went 0-for-4 in the same game (which included two strike outs).  He started at short and batted first.

...Takeshi Yamasaki went 0-for-2 in an Ikusei League game against the Shonan Searex on Tuesday.  He was the DH and batted fourth.  He struck out in his first at bat and flew out to short in his second at bat.  He is scheduled to join the Ichi-gun team either on the 10th or 11th.  Marty Brown plans on using Yamasaki in the four hole.

...Ginji started at second and batted second against the Shonan Searex on Tuesday.  He collected three hits, including a 2-out home run in his third at bat in the 6th.