Good as gold …

Iwase joins Golden Players club

Tony Blanco erased a one-run deficit with a mammoth eighth-inning three-run homer, but the night belonged to Hitoki Iwase, who notched his career 250th save and joined the Golden Players club in Chunichi’s 5-3 interleague win over Nippon Ham on Wednesday at Nagoya Dome.
Iwase became only the third pitcher to reach 250 saves, but he took a little longer than expected to reach the plateau.
Iwase on June 7 took the mound with a two-run lead against the Seibu Lions and got rocked for three runs to suffer the loss.
“That’s me for you,” an emotional Iwase quipped after the game.
“I’m happy. This is not really something I believe I did, but it’s the result of taking it one at a time,” said the 35-year-old left-hander out of NTT Tokai in the corporate league.
When asked about his next goal, Iwase didn’t hesitate: “The skipper told me to go for 300, so that’s my target,” said Iwase, who record his first save as a rookie in 1999.
He took over as the full-time closer in 2004, and notched a Japan-record 46 saves the following season.
He joins Japan’s all-time saves leader Shingo Takatsu (273) and Kazuhiro Sasaki (252) as the only relievers with at least 250 saves.
In the ninth inning, Iwase got a groundout before allowing a double. He then got a strikeout before rookie Yohei Oshima ran down a fly on the warning track to help Iwase nail down his league-leading 16th save.