Today (June 19, 2009) at Fenway Park in Boston, two Japan-born pitchers will start the game against each other in the match up of Kenshin Kawakami for the Atlanta Braves and Daisuke Matsuzaka for the Boston Red Sox. This is the 5th time that has happened in the history of MLB. Here are the all 5 match-ups in the past:
- May 7, 1999
Seattle Mariners Mac Suzuki vs New York Yankees Hideki Irabu
Retrosheet box scoreSEA A 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 - 1 5 2 NY A 0 0 0 0 3 5 2 0 x - 10 10 1 WP: Irabu (1-0) LP: Suzuki (0-1) HR: Russ Davis (8), Jeter (6)
- July 2, 2000
Detroit Tigers Hideo Nomo vs Kansas City Royals Mac Suzuki
Retrosheet box scoreDET A 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 - 2 6 0 KC A 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 0 3 0 WP: Nomo (3-7) LP: Suzuki (3-3) SV: Jones (23) HR: Polonia (5)
- June 19, 2002
Montreal Expos Tomokazu Ohka vs Kansas City Royals Mac Suzuki
Retrosheet box scoreKC A 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 - 3 10 1 MON N 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 x - 6 8 2 WP: Ohka (7-3) LP: Suzuki (0-2) SV: Stewart (7)
- May 9, 2007
Red Sox Daisuke Matsuzaka vs Toronto Blue Jays Tomokazu Ohka
Retrosheet box scoreBOS A 1 2 0 0 0 3 0 2 1 - 9 12 0 TOR A 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 - 3 8 2 WP: Matsuzaka (4-2) LP: Ohka (2-4) HR: Lugo (2), Ortiz (9), Ramirez (6), Lowell (6), Overbay 2 (5)
- June 19, 2009
Red Sox Daisuke Matsuzaka vs Atlanta Braves Kenshin Kawakami
MLB Game Day
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[...] This was the seventh time that the Japanese starting pitchers faced off against each other. I had an blog post in 2009 about it, but here is an update of that entry Japanese pitchers facing off: Kawakami vs Matsuzaka. [...]