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Nagoya Bruins 24-11 1rst East North Division

For the Nagoya Bruins, they rely on 22 year old Australian Jerry Neal to anchor their rotation with his top stuff and control and especially through his southpaw change-up, sharpe curve, a slider with a hard bite, and a plus fastball.

Neal is supported by two Dominican pitchers, Claudio Castilla and Antonio Garcia. A 6'2 200 26 year old, Castilla offers big league stuff and movement but his control is not elite but more average. He is a junk ball pitcher with the use of a cutter for speed.

Garcia is a towering 6'6 33 year old pitcher with 5 years previous professional experience before pitching in the IBL. He has average stuff and pitches but is a flyball pitcher receptible to giving up the longball. The bullpen lacks power arms, but Dustin Smith is a big time arm at closer.

Nagoya's staff is first in the East Intercontinental League in base-on-balls and strikeouts and third in ERA and runs allowed.

Nagoya is practically first and second in every hitting category there is available to see. Only base-on-balls drawn and strkeouts are above second and that is only because BoB is third. The Bruins batters are 10th in strikeouts.

The Nagoya Bruins have a nice lineup of hitters.The hitters with top contact ability are Canadian centerfielder Nelson Rainville who hits leadoff and Ashley Innes a 30-year old Australian left fielder.

Native Ichizo Matsuura, Panaman Daniel Guillen, and South African Todd Moore are the professional hitters on the club with both above avergae contact and power. Todd Moore is the hitter on the club who provides the most power.

Australian catcher Wendel Ayliffe follows the middle of the order with great power and vision at the plate providing the team with a serious OPS tool in the second half of the order.

The Yokohama Wasps are in another class than the first place Bruins, but unfortunately this means they are suffering a 15-20 record and are sitting in last place in the East North Division.

Pitcher Jun'ichi Kiyomizu is a nice IBL pitcher, but unfortunately for the Wasps he leads the rotation with less than Ace stuff. Though, he iduces groundballs 60% of the time with an abover average cutter and change-up.

The Wasps are 8th in ERA and 9th in bullpen ERA. American Ed Williams serves as he closer. And American John Hamlet leads the team in innings pitched. Hamlet has above average movement but is considered to have below average stuff with several pitches in his arsenal, but nothing dominant or greatly effective.

The club's hitting has some ability but niether the right mix nor the right amount of production coming from the strength if each individual player.
Club's best hitter is by far Dominican Luis Martinez. But Martinez only produced one homerun in the initial month. With a line-up without many movable pieces, his production has allowed the team to be nearly last in most offensive categories.

Lead-off hitter Yoshi Sakai has a poor eye and is not an ideal at lead off, and third-hole hitter Kazuma Kamimura is an average big leaguer at best and is anything but a professional hitter. Along with Martinez, American Stanley Krantz can provide power and has hit 5 out as of yet. And veteran pro player and 38-year old Shuzo Kawai is leading the team in WAR from the back of the lineup with some production their to at least give the Wasps an even line-up.

In this game, Hamlet as mentioned is a strong second pitcher for Yokohama and Richard Lawrence is a struggling prospect pitcher at the back of the bruin rotation. If the Wasps wish to take one from the Bruins, this game seems to be the chance they would want with this match-up on the mound. If Lawrence can keep Martinez neutral however. Wasps may repeat their lack of success.