Unless the typhoon season disrupts the schedule of the Nippon Series, Masahiro Tanaka will take the ball for the Pacific League’s Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in Game 1 on Saturday night, looking to continue one of the most remarkable runs by a pitcher in professional baseball, and doing it in a region desperate for positive events in the years after a devastating earthquake and tsunami.

So far, nothing has been able to disrupt Tanaka, who finished the regular season 24-0 with a 1.27 earned run average and a save, then was 1-0 with a shutout and a save in the playoffs after Rakuten won its first Pacific League title. In the regular season, he faced 822 batters and gave up only six home runs. Even more impressive, his performance came in a season marked by a juiced-ball controversy: Wladimir Balentien of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows hit 60 home runs to shatter Sadaharu Oh’s cherished record of 55 homers, set in 1964.

Regardless of the issues surrounding the ball, Tanaka and Balentien combined to make this one of the most memorable seasons in Japanese baseball. While Balentien vacations at his home in Miami, Tanaka is still pitching, and major league scouts are still watching.

Tanaka is expected to be the focus of an intense bidding war. Teams like the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Blue Jays, the Mariners, the Dodgers, the Rangers and the Angels are expected to submit posting bids with the hope of then negotiating a multiyear contract with him, perhaps exceeding the six-year, $56 million deal that Yu Darvish received two years ago.