Now Pitching For The Red Sox: Junichi Tazawa

The 23 year old  Japanese native pitcher was welcomed into the Majors this past weekend by the big "Hamburger Helper Batting Gloves" of Alex Rodriguez.

A-Rod broke a 0-0 tie in the 15th inning against the Sox when he blasted a two-run homer off of Junichi Tazawa.

Tazawa's Major League debut isn't one for the memories despite he recorded an out against Japan's Godzilla and countrymen Hideki Matsui.

Tazawa is a highly regarded pitching prospect that Boston has in their system. He was signed on December 4, 2008 by the Boston Red Sox after he dominated with Nippon Oil, an amateur team in Japan.

Tazawa racked up a 10-1 record with Nippon Oil and achieved a very impressive 1.02 ERA in 2008. His stock sky rocketed with those numbers so he decided to skip playing in Japan's professional league and move right into the majors.

Well here he is, his first year in the United States he is getting ball to start on August 11 against the Detroit Tigers.

Earlier this year Tazawa played with Double-A Portland and posted a 9-5 record with a 2.57 ERA. He was later promoted to Triple-A Pawtucket and then from there Boston's front office decided to bring up to the bigs after DFA'd John Smoltz.

Tazawa is a typical Japanese pitching product. He understands the "art" or pitching and he knows how to paint the corners.

The Japanese native has a decent fastball that ranges between 88-92 MPH and has decent movement, but Tazawa gets his outs with his secondary pitches.

According to SoxProspects.com, "His secondary stuff is very advanced for his age, and he relies on it heavily.".

Tazawa has a nice back-door slider that ranges from the low to mid 80's. According to scouts, his out pitch is a 70 MPH curve ball that has a devastating bite to it and makes batters look foolish.

Scouts have also been reporting that Tazawa has a decent fork ball that he is working out and that his " potential is awesome" for that pitch.

Tazawa also likes to work backwards when he pitches. Rather than the stereotypical American and Latin-American pitchers throwing fastball, fastball, breaking ball. Tazawa likes to throw breaking ball, breaking ball, fastball in order to strikeout batters. A lot of  Japanese pitchers have been known to do that and American teams in the World Baseball Classic have struggled with that format.

Junichi Tazawa is going to have to take a huge role in Boston's staff in order for Boston to move forward with the injuries of Tim Wakefield and Dice-K (his idol), and with the loss of John Smoltz.

This up-coming Tuesday, in my eyes, will be an exciting one for Red Sox nation. They will get to see a young, Japanese, stud pitcher be able to show his potential as a front-end of the rotation pitcher against the Detroit Tigers.

Stay tuned Red Sox nation.