Posted by Michael Street on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 4:47 pm

This has been a perfectly awful year for Asian starting pitchers.

Daisuke Matsuzaka and Koji Uehara are both currently on the DL with uncertain return times. Uehara will almost definitely be shifted to the bullpen when he joins the club, while Dice-K won’t return any sooner than August 18, if he returns at all this year.

Chien-Ming Wang is already done for the year after undergoing surgery on his shoulder capsule. Tomo Ohka was so miserable as a starter for the Indians that they demoted him to the bullpen. Ken Takahashi is a starter, but in the minors for the Buffalo Bisons.

That leaves only Bruce Chen (technically Panamanian-born Chinese), Kenshin Kawakami, and Hiroki Kuroda among Asian starters.

Chen is 0-13 over the past three seasons, and is 0-6 in 8 starts this year with the Royals, with a 5.73 ERA and a 1.49 WHIP, so I think we can toss him right out.

Kawakami has had an up-and-down 2009, and nothing shows that better than his five July starts. Sandwiching three solid starts where he gave up 4 ER, 9 BB, 6 K, 13 H in 17.1 IP for a 2.02 ERA (but a 1-2 record, thanks to the Braves’ weak offense) are two where he surrendered 10 ER (11 R total), 6 BB, 10 K and 13 H in just 9 IP for a 9.00 ERA (and an 0-1 record).

His overall stats are not awful, but the secondary stats show you where all the trouble lies. Lurking behind that fairly benign 5-8 record, 4.37 ERA and 1.39 WHIP are 8.6 H/9, 1.1 HR/9, 3.9 BB/9, 6.5 K/9 and a K/BB of 1.65. Walks, control, and home runs have been his bugaboo—and that Braves’ 4.35 R/G average.

Hiroki Kuroda’s had quite the opposite story. He’s  got a similar line—3-5, 4.44 ERA, 1.15 WHIP—but that excellent WHIP points to much better peripherals.

His 8.5 H/9 and 0.9 HR/9 are a touch lower than Kawakami, but his 1.9 BB/9, 6.7 K/9, and 3.53 K/BB show you where his strengths are. Though he doesn’t strike out many more than Kawakami, his excellent walk rate keeps him out of trouble.

Kuroda’s problem is that he rarely leaves the game with a clean slate. He’s only shut out the opposition once in 12 starts in 2009, and only had a single 1 ER outing, his first of the year. The rest of the time, he typically coughs up 2 or 3 runs, though he’s got four 4+ ER outings.

Since the All-Star break, he’s turned it on a little more. Though his overall line is damaged by a 1.0 IP, 3 ER relief outing just before the break, he’s done well in his last three starts, with 7 ER in 17.0 IP, with 15 Ks, 3 BBs and 17 H, for an overall line of 3-0, 3.71 ERA and 1.18 WHIP.

Pitching for the Dodgers, whose 4.91 R/G is 3rd in the NL, should help his win total more than it has, but that low WHIP and strong secondary numbers make him a very good bet for a strong second half.

Calling him the best Asian starter in 2009, given the depleted field, may be damning him with faint praise, but he’s sure to get better competition in 2010. Not only will Dice-K and Wang return—and hopefully return to form—but next season will likely see the pro debut of Junichi Tazawa.

Tazawa was the first Japanese prospect to go directly to MLB—his two predecessors to skip the NPB draft, Mac Suzuki and Kaz Tadano, could hardly be called “prospects” and skipped the draft because off-field problems had severely damaged their chances at a high slot.

Junichi Tazawa started in AA and lit up the league as the Sea Dogs’ best pitcher, racking up a 9-5 record with a 2.57 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 8.1 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 and 0.7 HR/9. He was recently promoted to AAA, where he’s 0-2 in 2 starts, but that’s not his fault; he’s got a 2.38 ERA, 0.71 WHIP, with 4.8 K/9, 0.8 BB/9 and 0.0 HR/9 in that time.

Next year should certainly give Kuroda more competition for that Asian starter crown, and being 35 years old won’t make things any easier on him. But for now, he should bask in the minor glory he’s got; it could give him the confidence to excel in  MLB the way he did in NPB.