Where Eagles Dare A Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles Fansite

Eagles vs Hawks Postgame: Bridges burnt

Photo © www.rakuteneagles.jp

KLEENEX STADIUM, SENDAI - I don't even know where to start after tonight's events.  I spent 8 freaking hours at the stadium today, made a sign supporting manager Katsuya Nomura, and basically he took a giant crap on mine and everyone else's head.  Let's get to the actual game first before I dive head first into my rant.

Pitching

Starting pitcher Darrell Rasner's line: 5 IP, 6 H, 1 HR, 1 K, 1 BB, 4 ER.  Have fun in double A or the Dominican Republic or wherever you end up next year, because you ain't hackin' it in NPB.

Softbank's Tsuyoshi Wada pitched brilliantly, scattering three hits over five innings while striking out seven.  Then Hawks manager Akiyama inexplicably used six relievers over the next four innings.  Perhaps he had a quota to fill or something.  He probably could've gone out there himself and thrown a couple shutout innings the way the Eagles were swinging the bat.

Hitting

There was some excellent hitting tonight, unfortunately none of it came from the Eagles.  When your 3-4-5 hitters combine to go hitless in nine at-bats, chances are you're going to lose the game.  Low and behold, loss number 66 to finish off the regular season.  The reanimated corpse of Takeshi Yamasaki went 0 for 4 and struck out looking twice.

The Rant

Let's get to the juicy stuff then.  Basically, this whole Nomura re-signing debacle can be blamed on both parties (management and Nomura) equally.  Management shouldn't have strung Nomura along for so long, and Nomura shouldn't have opened his big rice-hole to the press every chance he got.  For a while it was working in Nomura's favour though, a slow but steady groundswell of support was definitely building on his side.  I want to quote a translated interview with Nomura, courtesy of Gen over at Yakyu Baka.

Nothing I can say here.  I'm sure I'll have a chance to talk to the club.  I think the club when through some tough times when the previous manager Tao left.  They took the upper hand when they said they wouldn't say anything more than necessary.  I wonder if I can regain the upper hand at some point.

I'm not sure if this is a cultural difference between The West and Japan, but where I come from having the upper hand means that you've gained some sort of advantage.  Being childish, petulant, vindictive, and ego-maniacal is no way to get the upper hand.  You might get an uppercut or a backhand, but nothing positive will come out of either of those scenarios.  What am I talking about exactly?

Earlier today, according to Nikkan Sports (Google translation here), and commenter infimum (thanks!) starting left fielder Todd Linden has been removed from the active roster, effectively suspended for the duration of the 1st stage of the Climax Series.  The suspension stems from an incident between Nomura and Linden in the 7-1 loss to the Fighters on Saturday night.  Linden came on as a pinch hitter in the top of the 9th inning, grounding out to first base.  According to the report, after the game he said, "Thank You" to Nomura.  The 74-year old manager felt that Linden's comment was overly sarcastic and deactivated him from the active roster, citing "criticizing of managerial decisions".  Linden has been one of the most productive (not to mention popular) players over the past two months and has been a major reason why the Eagles are in the position they are.

Nomura is definitely "old school", and it is charming to a point, but this just reeks of a giant "eff you" move to management for not re-signing him to another contract.

Speaking of "eff you" moves, Nomura pulled another one at the game tonight.  At the end of the game there was a brief presentation of gifts to Nomura and some players in front of their dugout, after which the team promptly exited the field to the locker room.  The team didn't even come over to left field to acknowledge their biggest and loudest cheering section!!!  Mind you, most of the Ouendan are season's ticket holders as well, and they were NOT happy that Nomura didn't make an appearance.  There was lots of angry yelling and jeering from Rakuten's most faithful supporters, who were visibly shocked that he didn't even give them a wave.  I left the Ouendan before things got really ugly.

We'll see how all this drama plays out over the next few days leading up to the playoffs.  I just don't see how this is a rational baseball decision and not some juvenile stunt by Nomura to exercise his authority while he still has it.  How does this help the team?  Yamasaki couldn't hit a beach ball at this point, Teppei has gone cold, and he replaced Takasu and Watanabe with creampuffs Uchimura and Kosaka in the 3rd inning!

There's a fine line between genius and madness.  Perhaps Typhoon Melor washed the line away.