Pitcher Katsuki Akagawa (no. 47), a rookie southpaw from Miyazaki, is now on the top team. His numbers at the farm level aren’t exactly stellar, 2-3 with a 5.98 ERA, but he has apparently shown flashes of brilliance of late.
On August 14th against the Lions, Akagawa carried a no hitter into the eighth inning. That jump in form is undoubtedly related to his current call-up.
Headed back to the farm is pitcher Tatsuyoshi Masubuchi whose loss on Wednesday, and the resulting 12.60 ERA, doomed his chances of sticking around for a while.
Whoever is in charge of the call-ups and send-downs should probably start putting a little bit more thought into them. It’s difficult to understand the reasoning behind bringing a starter up to the top team, whether he’s ready to make a start in the pros or not, and then deprive the team of the chance to have that pitcher practice under the watchful eye of the pitching coach, Mr. Araki.
What Masubuchi needs is more game experience and top-level coaching. Sending him back down to the farm team might satisfy the former but doesn’t address the latter.
Anyway, here’s the top team roster as of yesterday’s game versus Yomiuri:
Pitchers: Yoshinori, Tateyama, Ishikawa, Yuuki, Matsui, Takagi, Lee, Yoshikawa, Oshimoto, Akagawa, Kamada
Catchers: Aikawa, Kawamoto, Kinugawa
Infielders: Kawashima, Miyamoto, Yoshimoto, Tanaka, Hatakeyama, Noguchi, D’Antona
Outfielders: Fukuchi, Guiel, Takeuchi, Iihara, Aoki, Yuichi
About Christopher Pellegrini
