Three Samurais

Masahiro Tanaka has been as good as advertised.

We all knew in Japan that he would be successful in the Major League Baseball, but not many could foresee that he would continue his winning streak into the MLB.

(Unfortunately, his winning stream ended at 34 on 20 May 2014.)

Yu Darvish and Hisashi Iwakuma were off to strong starts this season and are expected to win at least 15 games each.

Darvish and Iwakuma were 2nd and 3rd in the last year's Cy Young vote.

The three could end up in the top 3 in this year's vote.

Lloyd McClendon, the manager of the Seattle Mariners, said, "When it comes to pitching, it has nothing to do with power and everything to do with location and throwing timing off."

They all locate pitches with such precisions.

They all have effective sliders and nasty splitters and mix their pitches very well.

They are like Japanese engineers and craftsmen who are obsessed with perfection and create quality products to the world.

It is thrilling for me to see them strike out the batters.

The three samurais will probably continue to be dominant on the mound for years to come.

(May 2014)