OSAKA, Japan -- You can almost hear the New York tabloids preparing the back page headlines.

"U.S.-Japan Trade Deficit Mounts!"

"Days of Infamy!"

"The Bad News MLBers Go to Japan!"

And, of course, the inevitable: "Where's Sweet Lou?"

	Ichiro has only one hit in the first three games of the major leaguers' tour of Japan.

After three games against the Japanese All-Stars, the major league All-Stars and new Mets manager Art Howe have allowed 24 runs and are 0-3. They must win the remaining four games to avoid becoming the second big league All-Star team to ever lose the Japan series. The first team was the 1990 club that lost in such embarrassing fashion it prompted MLB to change the way it selects the roster.

Howe hasn't even selected his coaching staff yet and the media is already on his back. After the major leaguers lost to Japan 8-6 Tuesday at the Osaka Dome, a Japanese reporter asked him, "Do you feel like you are standing on the edge of a cliff and looking down?"

Sheesh. And you thought the New York media overreacted to everything. At least they don't make suicide analogies in their postgame questions.

Usually.

Could a manager possibly lose his job before he writes out his team's first lineup card?

"That would be a first. A manager getting fired before he even gets to spring training," Howe said. "If you can't win with this team, what the hell are you going to do?"

Howe chuckled when he said that and this Japan series is primarily a goodwill tour to boost baseball's popularity in Japan, but these losses are clearly irritating him and the players. Buying enough electronics to drag Japan out of its decade-long recession is nice and all, but they want to win, too.

"I didn't come here to lose," Howe said. "The margin of defeat in the losses is what stings more than anything. We really weren't in either game. I thought that if lost we would at least be in it, but we haven't been. The main ingredient in winning is pitching and we haven't been able to hold them down."

Howe said this before Tuesday's game, then watched Montreal starter Toma Ohka give up six runs in the first inning to the Japan All-Stars. "That six-run first inning was too much to overcome," Howe said.

The major league All-Stars have a great roster with Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Ichiro, Torii Hunter and Bernie Williams but most of the players haven't played in a month and are obviously rusty. Ichiro warned reporters before the series began that he hadn't worked out in four weeks and that they shouldn't expect too much, and he was right. His second-inning double Tuesday has been his only hit of the series.

"I think we're all a little bit impatient," said Bonds, who has homered four times. "We're chasing a lot of balls. We need to make them pitch better to us."

The biggest problem for the major leaguers has been the pitching staff. It isn't nearly as star-studded as the rest of the team -- Bartolo Colon is the best of the group -- and Angels reliever Scott Schoeneweis is the only one who had pitched in a game in the past month. Not only are they a little off, 19-game winner Mark Buehrle got hit in the left shoulder with a line drive by Hideki Matsui in Monday's game. The injury is not considered serious -- just a bad bruise -- but he's unavailable for the rest of the series.

	“	Those guys just keep hitting and hitting and hitting. That's what's killing us. ”
		— Torii Hunter, on the Japanese All-Stars

So when Ohka struggled, it wasn't as if Howe had Barry Zito available in the bullpen.

The pitchers are also having trouble adjusting to the Japanese mounds, which do not slope in the same way major league mounds do.

"All the pitchers have mentioned that to me, but what are you going to do?" Howe said. "Obviously it affects their release point and delivery. And if it creeps into their mind that it's different, it's going to affect their performance."

The players also are showing a little jet lag.

"I felt like (Monday night) it really did set in," said Howe, whose team has Wednesday off to travel to Sapporo for the fourth game Thursday. "There just wasn't any energy."

And finally, the Japan team is very good. Matsui, Japan's center fielder, is getting all the attention -- there are so many rumors about him going to New York that it almost wouldn't be surprising to see him wearing a Yankees uniform and playing in the next game for the major league team -- but it's the other Japanese players who are making the difference.

Pitcher Koji Uehara shut down the major leaguers Sunday and struck out Bonds three times. First baseman Alex Cabrera has demonstrated the power that helped him to a record-tying 55 home runs this season. Shortstop Kazua Matsui has been outstanding, running, fielding and hitting for power. And third baseman Norihiro Nakamura, a free agent this winter who the Mets might pursue, hit a three-run home run in the first inning to give Japan a 3-0 lead before the first out Tuesday.

"I didn't like what I saw," Howe joked when asked to appraise Nakamura after the home run.

"Those guys just keep hitting and hitting and hitting," Hunter said. "That's what's killing us."

Hunter hit a massive home run into the third deck Tuesday and gunned down a runner at the plate with an amazing throw off his back foot to earn the Fighting Spirit award, which goes to the best player on the losing team. It was his second of the series and the major leaguers are cleaning up in that award.

The Japan All-Stars, meanwhile, are picking up the nightly MVP awards and the 10 million yen check (about $85,000) for winning each night.

That's one of the hazards of building a sport's popularity in a country with a tour like this. The country gets better at the sport.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at cuffscaple@hotmail.com.