Card Of The Week June 30

On Wednesday of last week, Takuya Furuya of the Marines took a no-hitter into the ninth against Orix before surrendering a hit with two outs.  This was just about four weeks after he threw a no-hitter against the Baystars at the ni-gun level.   Had he completed the no-hitter against the Buffaloes I suspect he would have been the first pitcher to ever throw a no-hitter in the minors and a no-hitter in the majors in the same season.

But since he didn't, this week I'm going to showcase the pitcher who did throw a no-hitter last week.  On Friday, Daisuke Yamai of the Dragons no-hit the Baystars at the ichi-gun level.  Yamai of course famously had a perfect game going through eight innings in a Nippon Series game in 2007 against the Fighters when he was lifted for closer Hitoki Iwase in the ninth inning.  Iwase got three quick outs to clinch the perfect game (and not incidentally the Dragon's first Nippon Series champsionship since 1954).  This time around since the score was 9-0 rather than 1-0 and 53 years of frustration in Nagoya was not riding on the game, Yamai was allowed to complete the no-hitter.

I will be curious to see if BBM issues a card in Sports Card Magazine in the design of last year's No-hitter set to commemorate Yamai's no-hitter (like they did for Yuki Nishi's no-hitter last fall).  In the meantime, here's Yamai's card from the 2007 BBM Nippon Series set (#S08) showing him pitching his part of the perfect game:

And just so you know - I know this is from Yamai's perfect game because that's the only game that he appeared in during the 2007 Series.