Eight hours and fifty-eight minutes. After last night’s tie, that’s how much baseball was required for a victor to finally emerge in a Marines-Tigers game in 2013. However, the result of this game didn’t take that long to become clear, as the Hanshin Tigers won 7-1.
While down under the infield A seats I heard a huge roar. I’ve spent a lot of time at QVC, I know that roar. That’s the sound of Lotte fans getting damn excited. They had a good reason, too – Iguchi had just belted a solo shot off the first pitch from Tigers starter Enokida to move the score from 6-1 to 6-2. I had to rush back and see what was going on – right when I get back through the tunnel BAM! Imae cracks ANOTHER homer to make it 6-3 Hanshin!
Now we had ourselves a game.
On this damp Monday evening at QVC young righty Yuji Nishino was handed the ball with a tall task: go head-to-head with arguably the best pitcher in Japan – Hiroshima’s Kenta Maeda – and keep Our Marines in the game in the hopes that Itoh’s small ball could scratch out a run or two against the visiting Carp. The Carp are not a dangerous offensive team but no matter – when Maeken is pitching they are always in the game. Nishino did more than his fair share of the lifting tonight, delivering a masterwork of control and power, nearly silencing the Carp attack and boosting Our Marines to a stirring 3-2 victory.
It was a rough three nights in Tokyo for the Marines, but a little home cooking was just what the doctor ordered for an ailing club. Lotte snapped their 3 game skid with a convincing 7-0 win over the Hiroshima Carp. Ohmine pitched a complete game shutout to put Chiba back in the win column.
Our Marines sent ace Naruse to the hill on Saturday night at Jingu looking to get back into the winning spirit. It didn’t work out that way as Tokyo Yakult blasted their way to a 5-3 victory over Lotte. Grr. It’s actually kind of refreshing to have a garden-variety loss after the back to back
