Iriki did a number on his former mates and left the game with a 2-1 lead for a pinch hitter in the Swallows' eventual 9-2 victory. Iriki was as big a mystery to the Buffaloes hitters as he is to everyone. It's as if he were a southpaw in a previous existence. Asked for a response to his first Japan Series win, Iriki answered, "My first win? Well it's the first time I've done that in my life."
Buffaloes second baseman Eiji Mizuguchi could do little but shake his head and smile when asked about the pitcher before the game, and Iriki himself is only slightly more enlightening.
In Sapporo for the third game of this year's All-Star series, Iriki said that mood was the key to his success--that and not worrying about how many wins he gets.
He ordered a new yellow glove for the Series, and when asked why yellow, Iriki answered, "Why not?" And his capacity to surprise extends to the mound. Iriki slipped past the Buffaloes hitters through 4 1/3 innings with a couple of different sliders. But with the tying run on second and one out in the fifth, he tried something completely new. At the plate was one of the guys who used to catch him with the Buffaloes, Kenji Furukubo--and Iriki had something special for his former battery mate.
The journeyman snapped off a big curve that split the plate and froze Furukubo in his tracks.
"That was just for Furukubo," Iriki said after the game, explaining
it was a pitch he had worked on since the end of the season.
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Fast blondes apparently do have more fun. Despite overwhelming disapproval of his hair, Daisuke Matsuzaka won the Sawamura Award with a 15-15 record and an ERA and control record that left the award selection committee searching for a better candidate. It's a good thing for Matsuzaka there was no winner last year. Rather than go two years without a winner, the committee of former great pitchers chose Matsuzaka, not so much for his season, which was impressive if not always a joy to watch, but for his fastball.
Last year's non-selection was accompanied by a lot of moaning and grumbling from the old boys about how today's pitchers just can't compare with the likes of them. A year ago, the selectors suggested the non-selection serve as a message to starting pitchers: Get your act together.
But negative reinforcement did little to stem the changing tide in the game that is making the old benchmarks for starting pitchers virtually untouchable. And rather than look like a bunch of recalcitrant and bitter old men, the selectors opted for Matsuzaka because of a heater that reminded them of Eiji Sawamura's. Each of the selectors was quick to point out he had never seen Sawamura pitch--the former Yomiuri Giants ace died when his troop ship was torpedoed near Formosa. But Sawamura's image lives on in the right-hander's blur of a fastball--if not in the pitcher's fashion sense.
Masaji Hiramatsu, the former ace of the Taiyo Whales said there easily could have been no selection again.
"It's a fact that pitchers' stats are getting worse year after year so perhaps the criteria for selection are just unreachable," Hiramatsu said.
But among the pitchers, there were some who fulfilled some criteria and we settled on Matsuzaka."
Rather than a reward for what the youngster has accomplished, the award was meant to spur the fastballer to maximize his development and become Japan's marquee pitcher--as Sawamura was. And toward this goal, the selectors offered numerous helpings of advice.
Kazuhisa Inao, who earned the nickname "Ironman," for his legendary endurance and power while pitching for the Nishitetsu Lions, thought that if Matsuzaka works on his control, his ERA will really improve.
Hiramatsu said, "When Matsuzaka was good, he was great. And when he was bad, he was awful. His ups and downs were atrocious.
"The Lions have made a switch at from (Osamu) Higashio to (Haruki) Ihara for next year. I plead with the new manager to pitch Matsuzaka every fourth day or fifth day. (Hiramatsu later added that three days rest would be enough.)
"He's a young man and he can't concentrate on his game while pitching just once a week. Sure, there is a risk of injury but that's always there."--at which point Inao chirped in that he pitched more often than that.
Everyone agreed that Matsuzaka was a worthy successor to Sawamura because of how fast he throws but only former Yomiuri Giants ace Tsuneo Horiuchi made no comment about the youngster's hair. This should come as no surprise since Horiuchi had a reputation as a hell raiser after becoming a star straight out of high school--as Matsuzaka did.
Motoshi Fujita, a Giants ace before Horiuchi and later that team's manager, said that the ball was now in Matsuzaka's hand.
"We expect him to take things, psychologically as well as the way he lives his life, much more seriously. He should be the best player.
"Blond hair or brown hair just don't suit Japanese."
Shigeru Kobayashi, the Buffaloes pitching coach, said of Matsuzaka's selection, "It couldn't be helped."
A two-time winner of the award, once with the Giants and later with the Hanshin Tigers, Kobayashi said there was no real choice.
"It's necessary for the award. You can't have an award if you don't give it to anyone."
But giving the award to a .500 pitcher on a pennant contender because
his heater matches an image of a long-dead pitcher? Despite their statements
to the contrary, the selectors agreed with the message of Andre Aggasi's
camera commercial several years ago, when the former No. 1 tennis player
told the TV audience: "Winning isn't everything; Image is everything."
Now we have proof.
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Tommy Lasorda, who's in the Hall of Fame for managing the Los Angeles Dodgers, is in Japan for the Series. He has been an advisor with the Buffaloes since they tied up with the Dodgers this spring and had high praise for the club's new president Mitsuru Nagai.
"He (Nagai) was a visionary," Lasorda said prior to Game 3. "He wanted to bring a winning team to the people of Osaka, and that's why he brought me here. He brought me here to do exactly what happened."
Lasorda said that one of the moves he made was shifting catcher Koichi Isobe to the outfield and getting the team to go with Tetsuya Matoyama behind the plate.
Well maybe. But Matoyama has been an All-Star catcher in the past. And Isobe has spent most of his Pacific League career in the outfield despite being listed as a catcher--primarily because of Matoyama's ability behind the plate.
If there was a contribution to be made, it was to get the club to commit itself to the move and show some confidence in both players at their assigned positions.
If only for that, and for bringing in Shawn Gilbert, Jeremy Powell and Sean Bergman during the season, Lasorda more than earned his consulting fee.
The Hot Corner appears each Thursday in The
Daily Yomiuri .