Junichi Tazawa the rookie pitcher from Yokohoma played against the New York Yankees in the Yankee Stadium. On 4th December 2008 the player signed up with the Red Sox for a $3 million deal over a three year course. He comes in the line of Japanese players like Mac Suzuki and Kazuhito Tadano, and if he did play for The Major League he will be the third to do so without having played on a professional level in his country.

He is a Red-Sox righthander who gave a performance in the 14th innings of the game on arriving in North American soil for this season.

He has the credit of having been the MVP of the corporate league Intercity Championship in 2008.
Talking about the game Terry Francona the Red-Sox manager said, “We knew where we were,we’ve had our innings lined up. Obviously he’s (Tazawa)the last…..But he’s got length.He’s a starter. He had plenty left” (referring to the player as the last of their relief corps. When Takashi Saito threw a lot of pitches in the 13th inning, Tazawa knew what was coming in the field and was confident that he would take the stride from then on. Tazawa has spent the season with Portland Sea Dogs and PawSox. In 18 starts with the Sea Dogs,he was 9-5 with a 2-5-7 ERA. Today he was under inspection for off-speed pitching with sharp and late break.

Tazawa makes on an average 88-92 mph on the field and relies on his patent low-80s backdoor slider and nice low-70s curve (hitch-out), and average fork ball.

Yankees made it clear that the Red-Sox was lagging behind with pitching help.