This post has a few raw edges I'll be trying to smooth over in the next day or two. If you don't know already, I've been a Fighters fan for several years and they're who I'm rooting for in this series, so this may be biased.
Also, I found by random chance a pretty good summary of the futile Fighters history, in a Royals blog of all places.
So the first part: the rosters.
The Fighters 40-man roster and the Dragons 40-man roster have been put up officially on the NPB site, but in reality, most of these guys aren't going to see any game action during the series. Several of the Fighters kids never played a single top-level game at all this year.
Realistically, here's the Fighters lineup I expect to go out there.
Position Players, Fighters
Starting Lineup, without DH (with Seguignol as DH, move Ogasawara to 1B and put in Macias or Inada at 3B batting 7th):
1. R Hichori Morimoto #46, LF (.285/.343/.413, 13 SB)
2. L Kensuke Tanaka #3, 2B (.301/.358/.415, 21 SB)
3. L Michihiro Ogasawara #2, 3B (.313/.397/.573, 32 HR, 100 RBI)
4. S Fernando Seguignol #5, 1B (.295/.356/.532, 26 HR, 77 RBI)
5. L Atsunori Inaba #41, RF (.307/.355/.522, 26 HR, 75 RBI)
6. R Tsuyoshi Shinjo #1, CF (.258/.298/.416, 16 HR, 62 RBI)
7. R Shinya Tsuruoka #64, C (.241/.251/.340)
8. R Makoto Kaneko #8, SS (.254/.300/.382, 26 2B)
This lineup's gotten us far, but now that I look at it, we do have the lefties and righties clustered without Macias or Inada batting 7th, eh. Not sure whether they'll mess with it or not though.
Bench:
R Shinji Takahashi #30, C
R Satoshi Nakajima #32, C
R Yukio Tanaka #6, IF (this year's team captain... he'll see some at-bats)
S Jose Macias #9, IF
L Tomoyuki Oda #51, IF
L Naoto Inada #54, IF (more likely to play than Macias)
L Tomochika Tsuboi #7, OF (expected pinch-hitter, been injured)
L Toshimasa Konta #52, OF (likely to play some late-game outfield)
There's a chance some playing time might go to some of the farm kids, Kawashima or Iiyama being the most likely, but I'm not counting them for now. I'm not sure what the deal is with Kuniyuki Kimoto either, come to think of it.
Pitchers, Fighters
Rotation: I'm thinking of a 4-man rotation. Even though they could pull off 3 with the scheduling, it seems unlikely:
SP1: Yu Darvish #11, RHP (12-5, 2.89; 149.2 IP, 64 BB, 115 K, 12 HR)
SP2: Tomoya Yagi #29, LHP (12-8, 2.48; 170.2 IP, 51 BB, 108 K, 12 HR)
SP3: Satoru Kanemura #16, RHP (9-6, 4.48; 134.2 IP, 43 BB, 57 K, 14 HR)
SP4: Masaru Takeda #38, LHP (5-2, 2.04; 29 G, 84 IP, 15 BB, 54 K, 5 HR)
The Kanemura situation is just incredibly stupid. More on that later.
Bullpen: Micheal Nakamura is obviously the closer. In a longer series and with Kanemura out there I'm expecting more bullpen use than in the playoffs, and these are my best guesses of which guys will matter, in order:
CL: Micheal Nakamura #36, RHP (5-1, 2.19, 39 SV; 65.2 IP, 20 BB, 67 K, 5 HR)
BP1: Hisashi Takeda #21, RHP (5-3, 2.09, 3 SV; 81.2 IP, 8 BB, 61 K, 1 HR)
BP2: Naoyuki Tateishi #25, RHP (3-2, 2.72; 49.2 IP, 15 BB, 26 K, 3 HR)
BP3: Hideki Okajima #40, LHP (2-2, 2.14, 4 SV; 54.2 IP, 14 BB, 63 K, 5 HR)
BP4: Takehiko Oshimoto #61, RHP (5-0, 1.50; 36 IP, 16 BB, 30 K, 0 HR)
BP5: Yoshinori Tateyama #22, RHP (3-3, 3.06; 47 IP, 10 BB, 30 K, 6 HR)
BP6: Brad Thomas #17, LHP (4-1, 3.74; 45.2 IP, 23 BB, 43 K, 2 HR)
I'm not quite sure where Ejiri, Hashimoto, Shimizu, etc will fit in if at all. Quite frankly, if the Fighters have a lead after 7 and the starter's tired, Hisashi Takeda and Micheal Nakamura are lights-out, pretty much. A lot of the Dragons regulars are righty-hitting, but their likely DH is a lefty, which may change things around a bit. On the other hand, while Takeda's had a typical split, he's still been mostly unhittable regardless of which side of the plate you're flailing your bat from.
Now, as for the Dragons, I'm less familiar with them on the whole, though I did see them in person twice last month. So here's what I think they'll be throwing out at us:
Position Players, Dragons
Starting lineup without DH (I'm guessing that with DH, Kazuyoshi Tatsunami just gets thrown in there somewhere, probably 6th or 7th):
1. R Masahiro Araki #2, 2B (.300/.338/.358, 30 SB)
2. R Hirokazu Ibata #6, SS (.283/.355/.365, 17 SB)
3. L Kosuke Fukudome #1, RF (.351/.438/.653, 31 HR, 104 RBI, 11 SB)
4. R Tyrone Woods #44, 1B (.310/.402/.635, 47 HR, 144 RBI)
5. L Masahiko Morino #31, 3B (.280/.321/.395)
6. R Alex Ochoa #4, CF (.273/.341/.421, 15 HR, 77 RBI)
7. L Kazuki Inoue #9, LF (.311/.340/.476)
8. R Motonobu Tanishige #27, C (.234/.347/.353)
Tyrone Woods is a beast and Kosuke Fukudome is the CL batting champ by a long shot. Ugh.
Bench:
R Kouhei Oda #40, C
L Kazuyoshi Tatsunami #3, IF (Current active Japanese hits leader)
R Hiroyuki Watanabe #5, IF
R Masahiro Kawai #7, IF (will undoubtedly come in for a sac bunt before he retires, heh heh)
R Ryota Arai #25, IF (little brother!)
R Hiroshi Narahara #95, IF (former Fighter, traded to the Dragons mid-season)
L Yoshinori Ueda #35, OF (another former Fighter grrrr)
R Hidenori #57, OF
I know nothing about Hiromitsu Ochiai's tendencies in bench management, honestly, but since he's a CL manager I'm sure he's more used to the whole pitcher-pinchhitter management than Hillman is right now.
Pitchers, Dragons
Rotation: In typical CL style they won't say anything about it. I'm guessing a 4-man here as well:
SP1: Kenshin Kawakami #11, RHP (17-7, 2.51; 215 IP, 39 BB, 194 K, 22 HR)
SP2: Masa Yamamoto #34, LHP (11-7, 3.32; 170.2 IP, 36 BB, 124 K, 11 HR)
SP3: Kenta Asakura #14, RHP (13-6, 2.79; 154.2 IP, 33 BB, 107 K, 12 HR)
SP4: Kenichi Nakata #20, RHP (7-4, 3.91; 112.2 IP, 36 BB, 111 K, 16 HR)
I'm wearing a Kawakami #11 t-shirt RIGHT NOW, which I wore to volleyball tonight and we proceeded to lose FOUR STRAIGHT GAMES. I hope it's an omen. More on these guys later (Yamamoto in particular's a fun one to talk about).
Bullpen: Iwase. Sigh. He's going to own us.
CL: Hitoki Iwase #13, LHP (2-2, 1.30, 40 SV; 55.1 IP, 8 BB, 44 K, 3 HR)
BP1: Masafumi Hirai #36, RHP (5-3, 2.29; 63 IP, 16 BB, 44 K, 5 HR)
BP2: Shinya Okamoto #12, RHP (4-1, 3.40; 53 IP, 21 BB, 56 K, 5 HR)
BP3: Yuuichi Hisamoto #61, LHP (2-2, 1.76; 30.2 IP, 12 BB, 19 K, 0 HR)
BP4: Yuuya Ishii #30, LHP (2-1, 4.01; 24.2 IP, 10 BB, 24 K, 1 HR)
BP5: Yoshihiro Suzuki #23, RHP (1-0, 1.70; 53 IP, 15 BB, 54 K, 2 HR)
BP6: Mitsuru Sato #16, RHP (9-4, 2.65; 129 IP, 24 BB, 83 K, 9 HR)
BP7: Denney Tomori #46, RHP (0-1, 3.10; 20.1 IP, 4 BB, 11 K, 2 HR)
Luis Martinez is on the postseason roster but I'm wondering whether he'll actually get used. But this is one hella scary bullpen (fortunately light on lefties though).
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