Best pitching matchup of the season thus far? For my money it was today’s Dana Eveland/Shaun Marcum tilt at Rogers Centre. Both were throwing very well, but Eveland looks like a guy headed for a breakout year. For lack of a better word, he’s a gamer, and kind of flops around, looking perpetually restless. Not unlike David Wells. He’s got the (younger) Wells body type as well. Looks like Billy Beane scored again. Eveland was a throw in on the Dan Haren to Arizona deal.

Hiroki Kuroda, who got squeezed on a good pitch, opening the door to him losing his recent start against the Diamondbacks, has looked very good, but two of the other Japanese signings Masahide Kobayashi and Kazuo Fukumori, have not. It’s early but neither are being turned to with any shred of confidence. Kobayashi’s only given up a run in 2.1 innings, but the fact that he’s only thrown 2.1 innings should tell you something considering he’d been bandied about as a possible post-flameout option to Joe Borowski. He’s also given up five hits. Fukumori isn’t getting the ball either, and has given up three runs, while walking three in 1 1/3 innings. I don’t want to get into specifics, but after I had a conversation with a scout who’d watched Kobayashi closely in Japan during 2007. I promptly went home and dropped him from my EWC fantasy team.

There was a funny episode in fifth inning of the aforementioned Jays/A’s game. Eveland took the mound to face Frank Thomas and threw four pitches way out of the strike zone. It was his first walk of the game. After each pitch Eveland grew increasingly frustrated with himself and starter jerking and twisting his arms in all directions after each pitch. It was as if he hadn’t warmed up properly, or worse, was trying to shake off an injury. I would go so far as to say that Eveland was coming unglued. He finally threw a strike to Aaron Hill and allowed himself to be calm. But it was followed by another ball way outside. Eveland stomped around the mound some more. Luckily for him Hill swung at the next pitch and grounded out. Lyle Overbay, who looked pretty lost at the plate during the game, swung at a terrible breaking ball almost in the dirt for the second out.

Well, well, well, look who’s in first place? The F-ing Marlins. Here we go again, another terrible Marlins team headed to the playoffs. Unlikely, but not impossible. But offensively this is a pretty good team, especially with Jeremy Hermida, who I’ve said might deliver Miguel Cabreraish numbers during 2008, back in the middle of the lineup. The biggest question is the starting pitching. Any bullpen can come around a la Rockies 2007, I’m convinced of that. Check out who the Royals have setting up Joakim Soria and you’ll see what I mean. Suddenly Leo Nunez is lights out. Rockies castoff Ramon Ramirez is dealing. Even Hideo Nomo– (Stop) Let’s not get carried away.

Earlier in the week I read Eveland almost didn’t make the trip to Toronto because of “visa problems.” As someone with plenty experience in dealing with visas and problems thereof I was curious what the story was. Turns out Eveland’s car was broken into when he popped into a Hegenberger Road Starbucks on his way to Oakland International Airport. Along with his passport his laptop computer and iPod were also taken. Again, as someone with plenty of experiences having his car broken to in Oakland I sympathize.

Nice moment at the end of the Yakult/Yomiuri game tonight. Marc Kroon picks up a dribbler and underhands it to Lee Seung-yeop at first to end the game. Kroon raised his fist in the air and looked at Lee, and Lee back at Kroon. The logical thing would have been a high-five, but the two just awkwardly stared at one another, pumping their fists and making like they might high-five. But then they didn’t. Just one of those things, I guess. Yomiuri has won three of four, the other being a tie.

One last point about the A’s/Jays game: solid announcing by Pat Trabler and Jamie Campbell. One of the things I like about MLB.com is moving around the league, seeing all the ballparks and listening to the different announcers. For various reasons I’ve been listening to a lot of Mark Grace(DBacks) and Rex Hudler (Angels). Not fans of either. Hudler might be my least favorite announcer of all. Trabler and Campbell are very attentive, fairly calm and intellectual, which is a nice change of pace from a lot of the fratboy, and rah rah crapthat seems to be popular. Notice I carefully separated those two genres. They are distinct, although Grace manages to crossover into both genres. So does Jeff Brantley.

The Lotte Giants won again and are now 8-3 after splitting a rain-shortened series with Samsung. One player I’ve failed to mention is Giants catcher Kang Min-ho, who was 2-for-4 tonight with two RBI and two runs scores, and is now hitting .394 on the year. I’ve never liked Kang. He has his own song that Giants fans sing each and every at bat, despite the fact that he hit .251 and .271 (with very little power) his first two years in the league. I know I’m revealing a very jerky tendency in saying that. Obviously they were right to play him. It’s playing dividends now. Samsung also won tonight and is also 8-3.

Something I’m starting to look forward to with every Giants game is the awkward postgame interview that follows every win. In really hard-on-the-ears English the sportscaster asks Jerry Royster questions that always come out more pointedly than intended. Tonight it was “You every visit the pitcher’s mound alone when you make a pitching change. Why do you do like that?” Royster tries to take it in stride, then usually repeats a cliche two or three times before fumbling it back to the announcer who then translates for the audience. Sometimes Royster, who’s probably pumped up from the win and wanting to get home, forgets the announcer is speaking in Korean and will start nodding his head in acknowledgement, as if he’s contemplating what the announcer is saying…in Korean. Then he realizes what he’s doing and stops.

Tomorrow Wang is on the hill in Fenway. Should be a great Saturday morning. Also getting a starting nod is Nelson Figueroa, who emerged as the greatest pitcher in Taiwanese baseball history last season following his late-season signing. I’m exaggerating, but he did start and win the first, fourth, and seventh games of the Taiwan Series versus the La New Bears. He’ll face Manny Parra and the Brewers.