Did I say we were 5-8, and the last series was a “must win”? Oh, I did, and we didn’t, and that 5-6 is now 5-8. Daiei, once 3.5 back, took the lead for second place before dropping back on percentage points on Thursday. Rakuten and first place are just a mirage in the distance – we’ve got 15 games of hard battle to fight to wrap up second. The first three are this weekend.
Yet another critical series for Our Marines, this one just made more critical by the failures in Sendai. Lotte comes in 5.5 back of first with just 33 games to go, but more importantly is just one game up on Daiei and 3.5 up on 4th place Seibu. This series is about as must-win as an August series can be.
Less than two months ago, an unexpected start by Takuya Furuya resulted in a no-no near miss. Since then, Furuya has been a fixture in the rotation, easily the best pitcher for Our Marines since the resumption of Pacific League play. Tonight, Furuya pitched another gem vs PL leaders Tohoku Rakuten – 7 innings and 8 strikeouts – and the bullpen took it to the finish for a stirring 3-0 Lotte victory.
For the 4th series in a row, Our Marines came into the the 3rd game of the series with a chance to take it. And has been the case for every series so far in August, the Men of Chiba did just that, putting together timely hitting and impressive pitching from a whole host of players to take the finale from Nippon Ham 5-1.
The Chiba Lotte Marines plan for the last two months of the 2013 season is in full effect. No more of the bad pitching, no more of the losing. The goal was to forget all that went down in July and start playing like we did in May. After a little bit of a stumble to start the month of August Our Marines have been playing like a team destined for A-Class.
