The Dodgers' Champagne Stays On Ice for At Least Another Day

Random NLCS thoughts from someone who was locked away writing and missed the game.

There will be no celebration tonight. No players shouting "This team grinds." or "That was huge!" or "We're sick of people talking about Kirk Gibson and '88. No comparison whatsoever. That's Hershiser's deal. Didn't you see Justin's eye roll on Sunday in the postgame interview? We just want to effing win for us so stop asking clown questions, bro!"- wait, those last ones were what they wish they could say.

At least the Cubs fans got to sing their song one more time. Last night they looked like a stadium filled with people wearing Bill Murray masks.

The visiting clubbies (no not Cubbies stupid auto-correct)probably had to move really fast to tear all that plastic down in record time. Being a production guy, I know it takes a really long time to set up. I wonder what kind of plastic they use? Did they adhere it with velcro? Masking tape? Definitely not duct or gaffer's tape, that leaves remnants when you pull it up. You figure since the Cubs know how to win, they would buy some kind of pre-made set or something.

The Hiroshima Carp and NPB teams celebrate in an area outside of the locker room, because they consider it a sacred place, just like the dugout and especially the field. No tobacco stains, candy wrappers, or spitted sunflower seed shells anywhere. The ultimate respect for the game. Starting tomorrow (2 a.m. our time), the Central League champions Carp are playing the DeNa (Yokohama) Bay Stars and the Rakuten (Tohoku) Golden Eagles are playing the Pacific League winning SoftBank (Fukuoka) Hawks in the ahem, (okay the 13-year-old in me blushes) Climax Series-a six-game set where the division winning Carp and Hawks already have a game in hand. While Hiroshima and Fukuoka only have to win three games, the wildcard teams Bay Stars and Golden Eagles have to win four games to get to the Japan Series. The message here? Win your league, get the rewards. Nuff said.

Anyway, back to America because it is America's pastime after all.

Did Farhan and Friedmann have to help them? Imagine some poor kid "Tommy, err Mr. Lasorda can you pull up that end?" The cantankerous curmudgeon's reply would most likely be "F*%)*% You! You *%)^%+%!".

How long does chilled champagne keep, anyway? Where do they get it? Duty free? Do the Cubs and Dodgers (and Astros/Yankees for that matter) work out a deal about champagne usage before the series starts? Winner buys!

Oh well, maybe tomorrow Dodgers or maybe longer. Who knows how long? That's why they play the games.

Sadly, Kuroda Exits Playing Career Without One Last Chance to Seize the Brass Ring

 If the Hiroshima Carp were able to muster a win over the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in Game 6 on Saturday, Hiroki Kuroda would have been given a chance to write a fairy tale ending to a career that up that day was long, consistent, and steady, if never storybook.  Try as they might, his teammates couldn’t get him the ball just one last time.

   Alas, Kuroda will end his 19th and final season without winning a title as the relentless Fighters lived up to their name thanks in large part to a superior bullpen effort and the outstanding hitting of Japan Series MVP Brandon Laird, who clubbed a grand slam in the 10-4 win that clinched the Japan Series title 4 games to 2 for the visitors at Hiroshima’s Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium.

   It was a disappointing end for the Carp and its legions of enthusiastic supporters who were hoping to see Kuroda, who was a stalwart while winning 203 games combined in the NPB (all of which were with Hiroshima) and the Dodgers and Yankees in the Major Leagues, take the hill.  Kuroda had already pitched well in Game 3.  With a 2-0 Series advantage, the Carp had Kuroda on the mound with a 2-1 lead with two outs in the sixth inning of Game 3 at Hokkaido before the veteran had to leave the game with leg cramps and stiffness. The Hiroshima bullpen coughed up that game, and the three subsequent ones to end the club’s 32nd consecutive season without a Japan Series championship.

   After winning the title on Saturday, Fighters manager Hideki Kuriyama simultaneously paid tribute to and expressed relief that they didn’t have to face Kuroda in a winner-take-all match-up, even if he did have his marvel of a hybrid hitting/pitching star Shohei Otani waiting in the wings.

   “We faced Kuroda after we took the consecutive losses (in Games 1 and 2), but I was thinking that our players would’ve gone in the game on pure spirit,” said Fighters manager Hideki Kuriyama to Jason Coskrey of the Japan Times. “In a way, we took advantage of Kuroda’s energy. I really respect him. Maybe he wanted to pitch one more game, but if we were to play one more game, I’m not sure we could’ve won, so forgive me for that.”

   Kuroda started his career with Hiroshima in 1997 and played there through 2007 winning 100 games, garnering the 2006 Sawamura Award as the NPB’s best pitcher, while earning a reputation as a (Yomiuri) Giants killer. Wanting to play on a winning team, he jumped to the Major Leagues and signed a three-year $35.3 million free agent contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2008.    After a four-season stint that included a one-year extension in 2011, Kuroda ended up with a 41-46 record, with a 3.45 ERA and a 1.187 WHIP in 115 games and 699 innings (second only to Clayton Kershaw) for the Dodgers who went to the NLCS series twice during that time.  After signing a free agent contract with New York prior to the 2012 season, Kuroda went 38-33 for the Yankees over three years, sporting a nearly identical ERA (3.44) as he did with the Dodgers and an even better WHIP (1.155) while pitching in 95 games and averaging over 200 innings (620 total) in each season, tops on the team.

   Despite several substantial offers, Kuroda returned to Hiroshima in 2015, intending to stay for just one final season at age 40.  He finished 11-8 with an impressive 2.55 ERA and 169.2 innings pitched, strong enough that the Osaka native extended his career another season.  It was a good thing for the Carp as 2015 Sawamura Award winner Kenta Maeda agreed to an incentive-laden eight-year contract with Kuroda’s old Major League team, the Dodgers.  This season, Kuroda went 10-8 with a 3.09 ERA over 24 games and 151.2 innings.   He gave up three earned runs in a 3-0 Climax Series Game 3 loss to the Yokohama DeNA Baystars on October 14 before pitching well in his Japan Series 5 2/3 inning stint surrendering one run on four hits while exiting with a lead.  But the Carp bullpen had trouble from there on out-giving up 16 runs in the final four games-all losses.

   “However well you perform, it doesn’t matter if your team doesn’t get a win,” Kuroda told Kaz Nagatsuka of the Japan Times. “It’s all about the team.”

     Described as a calm and humble player, Fighters manager Kuriyama sang his praises to Nagatsuka after that game.

     “He certainly has ability and skills but you can’t describe him in just those terms He has a special quality that’s intangible.”

     In a consolation prize of sorts, the Carp announced that Kuroda's  number 15 jersey will be retired. He is just the third player in team history (Koji Yamamoto (number 8) and Sachio Kinugasa (3) were the first) to have his number retired.

  Carp owner Hajime Matsuda told Kyodo News:

  “I wanted him remembered in 15 and 20 years’ time not just as a pitcher who won 203 games in Japan and the United States but also for the influence he had on people.”

      Having covered Dodgers games during Kuroda’s entire career in Los Angeles, I would describe him with one word, “ballplayer”.   While it is a generic term by those of us in the outside world, being called a ballplayer by a teammate or an opponent means earning their ultimate respect. The term is not often bandied about like clicking the “Like” button on social media. Such-named players are often the ones who who are as tough as nails, don’t speak much and “compete” (another popular term in player vocabulary) entirely for their team.

    My brother Dave taught me to believe that no player “deserves” to win a championship, no matter how good or how nice of a guy they are.  Championships have to be earned. While Hiroki Kuroda may not have deserved to win his first championship in his 19-year career, I really wished that he had been given the chance.  But instead, he was left waiting in the wings for the last time as yet another team celebrated on the field at the end of the baseball season.

   

    And that’s a damn shame.

Hiroshima Will Rely on A California (and Missouri) Kid to Give Them a Leg up on Series.

 Carp pitcher Kris Johnson hopes to help his team return to Hiroshima with a one game lead.

With his Hiroshima Carp tied with Hokkaido’s Nippon Ham Fighters at two wins apiece, starting pitcher Kris Johnson will take the ball on Thursday for Game 5 to hopefully help his team get a leg up on the best-of-seven Japan Series.    The left-hander has already had a busy week starting with a Game 1 win in which he outdueled pitching/batting sensation Shoehei Otani in a 5-1 win on October 23.  The next day, he was announced as the Sawamura Award winner given to the NPB’s most outstanding pitcher.

  After winning the ERA title in his first year in Japan in 2015, Johnson was 15-7 while sporting a 2.15 ERA and striking out 141 batters in 180 1/3 innings.  Johnson became the second foreign born Sawamura Award winner in the history of Japanese baseball and the first since Gen Bacque won the Cy Young equivalent in 1964 with a stellar 29-9 record and 1.89 ERA in 353 1/3 (gasp!) innings.

“It’s a huge honor just to win the award,” Johnson told Japan Times reporter Jason Coskrey in an interview on Monday. “To be the second foreign player, that’s just a whole other level. I looked up (Bacque’s) stats, and mine are nowhere near what he accomplished. Just to be included in that, with his name, is an honor.”

 It is the second consecutive year the Carp at one of their pitcher’s win the Sawamura.  Last year, the honoree was none other than current Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Kenta Maeda.

  This writer had the fortune to chat with Johnson last summer in Hiroshima.  It was a few weeks after he signed a three-year contract extension and four days after my wife and I saw Johnson pitch masterfully in an 8-2 win over the host Hanshin Tigers inside Osaka’s hallowed Koshien Stadium on July 8.   Getting batters to swing and miss seemingly at will, Johnson kept the Tigers hitters off-balance the entire game en route to a seven-inning, seven strikeouts, zero earned runs allowed effort before an appreciative visiting crowd that included a raucous and choreographed group of Carp fans in the left field upper deck.   He smiled when I told him that it was our first Japanese baseball game.

  “You were at the game?”  Johnson said in his team’s spotless dugout prior to Hiroshima’s game against the Yomiuri Giants that the Carp would win 13-3 behind Takahiro Arai’s two-homer, four hit, five RBI game. “That’s great, glad you got to see it. You’re really going to like watching a game here. It’s definitely another level (of enthusiasm here) maybe more because of the fans.”

 “The cities are bigger in the States, but you find out that all the stadiums are sold out here almost everyday.  Not only that, but your team might be up or even down by 10, and they’re still cheering like you’re in a close game.  When you’re up to bat, it’s a non-stop music and cheering, dancing for whoever is at bat.”

  “I’m still amazed that if a pitcher gives up 10 runs, our drums will start banging, and then the crowd chants to try and pick you back up.  There’s no negative attitude, you don’t get the negative hecklers.   I think my wife heard one heckler in Yokohama, and that’s the only time in a year and half that we heard it.”

  After a few years in the minors in the U.S. and a three-game MLB stint with Pittsburgh (2013) and Minnesota (2014) in MLB, Johnson is in no hurry to come back home just yet – hence the three-year deal he signed in the middle of his second season in Hiroshima.  After expressing gratitude towards team officials, coaches and teammates, he spoke of the country itself.

  “The Japanese culture itself is a peaceful culture,” Johnson said. “It’s always positive and that’s what I think that my wife (Carly) and I love about it.  You can go anywhere and meet anybody and they just shake your hand or want a picture with you. They just want to connect.”

  “Whenever we go around town, kids, people will come up for a photo to shake my hand or just say ‘ganbatte’ (do your best or fight!)  They’re very respectful.  If you’re doing something, I just say I’m sorry I’m with my wife doing stuff and instead of complaining, they apologize for bothering us, which they aren’t.  I love the interactions, things like taking selfies with kids.”  

  “I love how everyone from players to managers and the fans respect the game. In Japan, baseball is huge, it’s the national support so everyone recognizes you. Football you can’t see their faces, but in baseball we’re always up on scoreboards and billboards, so they know what we look like.  Some players will wear face masks when they go out, but I don’t because it doesn’t bug me at all.”

  At the time of this interview, the Carp had a 10-game lead that eventually grew to a whopping 17.5 gap over the second place Giants by regular season’s end to claim its first Central League title since 1991.  In the Climax Series (the equivalent of the LCS in MLB), Hiroshima took advantage of the one game-lead given to them by virtue of winning the Central League and dispatched the DeNa Baystars with relative ease 3-1.    No matter what happens in the Japan Series, this season’s result will surpass last year when the Carp missed out on the playoffs by one game.

  “Last year we had a lot of fun,” he said. “We lost a lot of one-run games that we were just on the cusp of winning. A few things go the other way and we win those things.  But we still ended up only one game out, which made it exciting towards the end.”

    “This year has been different because we have this lead, we’re playing loose and scoring a lot of runs while the pitchers are doing what they need to do on the mound.”

  In addition to his contributions during games, he added that he is trying to help his fellow pitchers, especially the younger ones.    

 I was told I am one of the top guys between pitches,” Johnson said. “I like to keep the time between pitches really short.  It’s something I brought from the States and I try to help the younger kids who are used to the traditional slow style of Japanese baseball.”

   He also is trying to help his teammates with his mind set.

  “I learned to take the good and bad together and use a positive attitude to figure out a way to make them both good,” Johnson said.

  For him and his teammates, he hopes that the power of positive thinking will help lead to a Hiroshima’s first Japan Series championship in 32 years.