He did it on 139 pitches; going into the 9th on 128 pitches, manager Atsuya Furuta was just like “You’re going out for the ninth, too.” They had a 6-0 cushion, so if it got broken up, they could just take him out then.

I didn’t realize Guttormson had actually been in the Mariners’ system, though now I see he was in San Antonio in 2004. Wacky.

Of course, you have to understand that the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles are like the NPB equivalent of the Kansas City Royals, only worse. Shunsuke Watanabe had a no-hitter going against them earlier this year, which was broken up not by a hit — well, not exactly — in the 7th inning he hit Tsuchiya Teppei in the head with a pitch and was immediately ejected under the “dangerous pitch” rule. Oops.

“TOKYO — Rick Guttormson became the 72nd pitcher in Japanese League history to throw a no-hitter.

Guttormson, a 29-year-old right-hander from Torrance, Calif., struck out nine and walked one in the Yakult Swallows’ 6-0 win over the Rakuten Golden Eagles on Thursday.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” Guttormson said. “I can’t explain it.”

Guttormson, who has no major-league experience, had an 8-5 record in his first year with the Central League team last season.

“I started to think about the no-hitter around the third inning,” said Guttormson. “Everyone on the bench stopped talking to me after the sixth inning.”

Yakult shortstop Shinya Miyamoto committed a first-inning error and Rakuten’s Katsumi Yamashita drew a walk in the fifth before Guttormson retired the final 13 batters for his first career no-hitter.

It was the league’s first no-hitter since Kei Igawa did it for Hanshin in 2004.

Mel Bunch was the last American to throw a no-hitter in Japan, doing it for the Chunichi Dragons in 2000. Other American pitchers to accomplish the feat include Terry Bross and Gene Bacque.”

“Stuff” has always been a discription of a pitcher’s raw pitches, speed and movement on the fastball, bite/snap on the curve……movement on the changeup….etc…….Saying a pitcher has great “stuff” is in reference to their raw ability to throw the ball…and has nothing to do with the pitchers ability to control that “stuff” or to learn the actual “art of pitching”.

Outside of the time Meche was recovering from his shoulder problem when his velocity dropped…..he has always had great “stuff”, which is why so many people were always so high on him…..hoping that at some point in time it would finally “click” and he’d learn how to actually pitch and execute his pitches rather than just throw the ball up there.

Speaking of Matt Thornton….another pitcher with great raw “stuff” but

http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/suzukic01.shtml

Most similar by age:

26 – Al Wingo (1919-1928)
27 – George Stone (1903-1910)
28 – George Stone (1903-1910)
29 – Bill Everitt (1895-1901)
30 – Mike Donlin (1899-1914)

As if we needed more evidence that Ichiro is a dead-ball era player…