I didn’t get a chance to go to this one due to my short trip out of the country (I’m typing this in Malaysia). John went instead of me, and from what I can tell it looks like I should be glad I missed it.

Here we have:
a) Another pitching implosion. A group effort, 7 runs by starter Kobayashi, 3 by Komiyama (in 1/3+ innings), 2 more by Kawasaki (one run charged to Komiyama, but given up on a 3-run HR to Kokubo by Kawasaki)

b) Bobby gets ejected for the first time in Japan. Am I mistranslating that from the Japanese? It seems like he would have been ejected before now, as he’s been around for some 7 years. Anyway, NPB has hit him with a crushing 50k yen fine (edited as of Tuesday), so I hope the team can scrounge up the scratch for that.

So why are the Marines in last, 4 games below 500? As I have may have mentioned — pitching. As of this writing, the Marines have a team ERA of 5.81 through the first 10% of the season. That’s a full run above Yokohama’s team ERA in 2008 of 4.74 — and they lost 94 games last year.

And I really don’t want to keep harping on it, but Kawasaki’s 2 earned in 1 inning of work only slightly raised his 16+ ERA – and he’s appeared in 6 of Lotte’s 14 games.

I’m no baseball genius, but something’s gotta change with the pitching staff if we’re ever going to climb out of the cellar! Maybe with the likely rainout on Tuesday (edited: it was a rainout) the arms can rest… Again, that’s as much optimism as I can muster today!

Regardless, John and I are making our first road trip of the season on Friday to see Lotte beat up on Seibu! (OK, there’s some more optimism for ya)