27 August: Yoshihisa Naruse (LOT) vs Hiroki Yamada (DAI)
28 August: Yuji Yoshimi (LOT) vs Toshiya Sugiuchi (DAI)
And I tell you that Our Marines lost one of those games in disappointing fashion while giving the starter in the other game an epic thrashing – you’d surely say we won the first and lost the second, right? After all, Sugiuchi is one of the aces of the game and Yamada is, well, not. But that is exactly what happened on Friday and Saturday, as Lotte dropped the first game 4-2 (and Naruse took the loss) and cruised to a 9-6 victory over Sugiuchi and Daiei in Fukuoka. The rubber match on Sunday was a highly disappointing affair as Daiei beat out two runs off Hayden Penn and held on for the win. A 1-2 road trip, and just like that, back to third in the ultra-tight Pacific League race.
Naruse’s big problem on Friday was exactly what you would expect Naruse’s problem to be (based on this year) – a 2 out, 3 run HR in the first by Tamura. The other problem was also a bit predictable – only 4 hits to score those 2 runs.
The reason I say it’s predictable is that in essence the Lotte offensive 8 is without 4 starters right now – Ogino (Ta-Ka-Shi!) of course, and Satozaki has been down with back problems for most of the month. (Now, I like Matoba as a catcher. He seems like a calming influence on his pitchers and he calls a nice game. It’s no coincidence that the pitching has been solid since he’s been starting. But he has no bat at all.) Now Saburo is out for a bit as well with a hamstring injury (at least 10 days as he was de-registered from the ichi-gun roster) and Kim Tae Kyun continues to not produce runs (though he had the only RBI on Sunday and had RBIs via bases loaded walks twice this weekend, but no HRs, no clutch hits except for the one on Sunday).
Saturday’s game was a nice confluence of a total breakdown by Sugiuchi and great capitalization on that breakdown by the Men of Lotte. Three bases loaded walks, a sac fly, and a 3-run HR by Ohmatsu shoved Sugiuchi in an early 9-0 hole. Yoshimi pitched well, I thought (despite the 4 ER, 3 of which were on a HR) and Furuya + Yabuta were a wee bit shaky (ahem!) out of the pen, but it’s hard to blow a 9-run lead. The closer score at the end reflected just a bit of late inning drama, but not enough to make you worried.
If I were Hayden Penn I would be a bit frustrated after Sunday’s game. Matching up against the eminently hittable Ohtonari, Penn pitched rather well early in the game and well enough late to win, but he got no offensive support. Lotte had an early 1-0 lead thanks to the Tae Kyun RBI mentioned earlier, but the offense did little the rest of the way despite having men in scoring position with no or one out several times later in the game. Even Penn’s second run (of two earned) was a result of a mistake in defensive strategy – with a runner on third and nobody out in the fourth, Tsuyoshi fielded a hard-hit ball, checked the runner at third, and didn’t make the throw to first to prevent the runner from scoring. My feeling is especially in the first you take the possibility of the run scoring from third to get the out, as 1st-3rd-no outs is a pretty awful situation. Sure enough, both runners scored, and the second was the winning run.
Anyway, 1-2 isn’t so bad, and after this series Lotte is still just a single game out of first. Only 4 games left against Daiei (before the Climax Series, at least!) so Lotte must take care of business against Rakuten and Orix, especially (the two teams against whom we have the most games remaining). We can do it!
It’s really quite nice that a successful organization like the Seibu Lions allows older folks to work with the younger crowd, and in critical positions, too! I especially like it as a Lotte fan – nothing like a 47-year-old reliever, released last year after YOKOHAMA thought he was washed up, coughing up a fat pitch to cushion the pain of blowing a 2-0 late inning lead.
And that’s just what just what Kimiyasu Kudoh did – I thank him heartily for it.
The story: Shunsuke Watanabe pitched 6+ innings of 5-hit shutout ball and left with a 2-0 lead (earned thanks to an error by Seibu starter Ishii and a run-scoring single by scorching hot Iguchi). Shingo Ono took over for The Low-Throwing One and mopped up the 7th by getting a DP ball, but got rattled in the 8th to the tune of 2 runs on 3 hits and a HBP, only getting bailed out by yet another DP ball.
Meanwhile, Lotte had a golden chance in the top of the 7th with a bases loaded situ and only one out, only to see Kim Tae Kyun ground into another inning-ending DP. Honestly, other than the continued injury absence of Ogino (Ta-Ka-Shi!) the only real black spot on the current run is the continued profound slump of our number 4 hitter. He’s batting around .230 with RISP and is 4-22 on the season with the bases loaded. I seriously think Nishimura-Kantoku needs to move him out of that 4 spot until his confidence and stroke come back. Fukuura would fit nicely in there.
SO it’s a 2-2 game. Seibu is feeling the pressure of a 4 game streak with Our Marines and Daiei hot on their tail. They want to hold that score where it is until their big bats can take the lead. To accomplish this strategy, they need something special in this critical spot – in comes Kudoh. Bless you, Watanabe-Kantoku! After Fukuura grounds out to lead off the 8th, Saburo sees the aforementioned fat pitch and sends a reminder into the left field stands that Lions fans shouldn’t expect it to be easy. Just like that, the quick turnaround is reversed again, and Lotte has a 3-2 lead going into the 9th.
Kobayashi closes it out, and looky here – 28 games remain, Lotte sits a mere one, teeny-little game out of first. Yes indeed.
Lotte makes their move on the top spot tomorrow with the Baby-Faced Killer (I have my Karakawa towel already packed in my bag for tomorrow) up against a member of the “Inexplicable Announced Starter When You Desperately Need a Win” Department, Fumiya Nishiguchi. He’s older than me and hasn’t posted a sub-5 ERA in about 3 Prime Ministers. Should be a fun one.
I was poking around the Marine Museum after the game to see what new goodies they had in the shop. There was some interesting new items in there, and a bunch of stuff on clearance, so I scooped up a bit, paid my yen, and wandered into the humid evening. Lotte had just dropped the first game of the 3 game home stand with the Fighters – a very important home stand, and the first of a stretch of games that I think is the most important stretch of the year. From today until the end of the month, Lotte has 13 of 19 games at Chiba Marine (and three of the others are in Tokyo Dome) so if the team is going to make a move, this is the time.
Tonight’s pitcher was the great Bill Murphy – he was shaky in the first but awesome after. Unfortunately the offense was far less than awesome so the Marines ended up losing 3-1. As I wander out of the Museum Shop, I stop to shove my goods into my backpack when the nearby gate opens and out comes Murphy and new starting pitcher Hayden Penn on bikes. Bill stops to sign some stuff for some kids as Hayden tools by. I wanted to chat with both so I say “Hey Hayden.” and he says hey but keeps on going. Oh well. I wait for Murphy to finish signing, he says hi and heads off. Too bad, I had some nice things to say, like:
“Hey Bill, sorry the offense only managed one run despite 13 baserunners.”
“Geez, Bill – that’s two games in a row the lack of clutch hits by our offense hurt you.”
So it goes, I suppose. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to actually chat with him before the end of the season. For the record, I’ve only had the chance to chat with a few players this year:
Karakawa Yuki (yay!) – (and of course Karakawa’s mom/dad/sister often)
Bryan Corey (a few times)
Ono Shingo (briefly, but I did take a picture with him)
Ohmatsu (briefly, but often and he’s quite friendly to me)
…and that’s about it. There’s still time in the season though.
But back to the baseball – tonight’s game was quite frustrating as there were plenty of prime chances to score. Lotte had 2 runners on 4 times without scoring. In the 4th, two one, one out, Ohmatsu at the plate. He smashes a line drive right at Fihters starter Keppel. Keppel dives out of the way, throwing his glove up instinctively… and snags the ball by chance. Flip to first as the runners were going, double play. 7th inning, two on, two out, 1 run game. Imae belts a line drive that would have scored both had it been anywhere but right at Hichori in left. Eek.
The 8th was the most frustrating. Keppel was tiring. He walked Fukuura (3-3 with a walk on the evening) and Kim Taekyun to start off the inning and is pulled for Miyanishi. Nishimura-Kantoku makes an absolute baffling move – he pulls Ohmatsu for pinch hitter Masato Watanabe (???), who promptly drops a lovely sac bunt (????!!!!). Why, why, why? I smack the chair in front of me in frustration. Saburo is up – he’s 2-3 at this point. He hits a grounder right back to Miyanishi, who looks over at Fukuura on third – oh no, he’s off third! Miyanishi fires over, Fukuura is out. Aono pinch hits for Nemoto (starting for Iguchi, and drove in the only run) and grounds out to end it. What a frustrating inning.
The troublesome parts about the last week and a half are a) losing 7 in a row, including the sweep at home vs Daiei and the road sweep at Sendai (We haven’t won since 2008 there! I was at the game last time we won at K-Stadium) b) the bullpen being completely awful, basically from top to bottom c) The offense just not delivering the timely hits. For example, Saturday Lotte won at Skymark vs Orix 4-0, but all runs were off of 2-run HRs despite getting 21 baserunners on base. 21!
The starting pitching has been very nice, though – Naruse had a great game on Friday, Yoshimi had by far the best game of his season on Saturday (a complete game shutout), and new starter Hayden Penn went 5 very strong innings on Monday.
There’s so much to be hopeful about – Naruse looks like he’s on another late season roll. Watanabe and Murphy look strong. Surely the timely hits will start dropping again soon. Ono Shingo is back in the lineup (he came strongly out of the pen tonight). Karakawa is also back from his broken hand and will start on Thursday. Ogino Takashi is due back… sometime. And despite the losing streak and the injuries, the team is a mere 3.5 games out of first. We’ll make our move – I am sure of it!
This just in: Bill Murphy continues to be awesome. It’s 11 starts on the year and now 9 wins for the Californian lefty.
I took a half day holiday to celebrate the start of the season’s “second half”, and to pay another visit to Seibu Dome. It hasn’t gone well for me so far this year – two visits, two losses. This was sure to be different. After all, I took a holiday, so surely the team would repay that. And just to tempt fate – I brought The Darned Hat.
Surely, indeed. Murphy got into a bit of a rough patch in the first two innings, but after a talk from coach Nishimoto he settled down and dominated the home Lions. He yielded two in the first and nothing after, and the offense gradually ate into the lead and then put the game away in a very nice 5-3 victory. Ii, ne!
We had a blast at this one. Katsu and I took seats in a pretty empty section of the infield unreserved seats (What?!?!??? Plenty of seats at a midweek Seibu game??? Unheard of. Oh wait, they don’t sell out playoff games.) and I decided to lead the cheering. I got quite a few people around me to join in – there was the older gentlemen sitting alone, the two nice girls and their mother, the mom and two young boys, the lone salaryman, and the middle-aged couple (I better watch that – they were probably my age, actually!). All were ready to give their best to cheer the team on.
It was so hot in the stadium – not just because it was so hot outside (and oh it was) but also because Seibu Dome basically sucks all air circulation out of the vicinity. It was OK if you didn’t move an inch, but if you were running from section to section, high-fiving everyone around you it got real hot, real quick. Fortunately, the one redeeming value of Seibu Dome is the nice food and drink service – a young woman strolled by selling frozen oranges, which really, really hit the spot. She was also selling “Lions Water”, I asked if she was selling “Lotte Victory Water” but the answer was a confused no. So it goes.
Anyway, as I said Murphy got himself into a spot of bother in the first, so the kitty cats held an early 2-0 lead. In the third Satozaki decided to cut into that lead all on his own, jacking a big tall one to the outfield. The bat was flipped. Over the fence, the fans were in delirium – well, at least the ones that count. It was a nice follow-up for his nice HR in the All Star Game on Saturday. I went round and round, high fiving all I could…
Saburo tied things up in the 4th with a run-scoring single. Iiiiii, neeeee. This time the ‘middle aged’ couple both ran down to high five me – we ended up hugging and jumping up and down like fools. Is it October or still July? It doesn’t matter in fandom.
Murphy looked just fabulous after settling down. He ended up going just shy of a full 7, giving up 4 hits (and the two runs) with 6 K’s to boot. It’s yet another quality start. Where would our last few months be without him in the rotation?
The game slipped on. Nishioka speared a bullet from the bat of Kuriyama to stop a rally in its tracks in the 5th – as pretty a catch as you will see. The good pitching, the nice D, the fly balls getting hit by Lotte bats – you knew something good had to happen. Lucky 7 – still a 2-2 game. Saburo flies out to deep center, and Fukuura comes to the plate. B-l-a-m-m-o! A huge, line drive blast to the deepest part of the park!!! 3-2 Lotte, and bedlam, as expected. Finally, we get to crank up the anti-Seibu song!
It’s more of a pro-Lotte than anti-Seibu song, but when it comes out you just know good stuff is happening. My well-spaced-out friends and I sing lustily.
A few more runners get on, and 3B substitute Hosoya Kei (Imae has a gimpy shoulder) drives in another run, pushing the score to 4-2! Iiiii, neeee!!!
Ohmatsu put the cherry on the cupcake with a beefy power pop fly that looked like it barely missed the ceiling but definitely didn’t miss going over the fence. 5-2 Lotte! Kobayashi came in to mop things up in the 9th – he gave up a run, Seibu fans got a bit of false hope, and Lotte (of course) won anyway. It’s just the natural order of things.
A few more bouncy hugs later, and after song after enjoyable song the ouendan drifted home. It was great to see my first road win at Seibu this year, and a lovely way to kick off the home stretch.
Update – on Wednesday Watanabe Shunsuke and the Lotte bats combined to put a major beating on Seibu, 9-4. With that, Seibu is consigned to third, and the weekend series with Daiei gets even more meaning. It’s going to be a great one!
Late in Tuesday’s game with Los Gigantes del Yomiuri I had a chat with one of the Chiba Marine security guards I know in passing.
Him: “This feels good.”
Me: “Yeah, yeah it does.”
Him: “I went to both of the games in Tokyo Dome. Bad, very bad.”
Me: “Mmm.”
Him: ((pauses)) “This feels REALLY good.”
Let’s put it another way – I certainly didn’t feel any worse after Wednesday’s close to the 2010 Interleague games with Yomiuri. 3 shutouts in a row, undefeated at home since May 5, our young ace Naruse on the hill – I loved our chances. Turns out I was right to love out chances as Naruse gave up but one run on 5 hits with 8 Ks and the offense beat the Yomiuri pitching staff into a pulp – AGAIN – as Lotte poured it on in a lovely 8-1 victory. It felt REALLY REALLY good this time.
Sure, cynics might say the overall series ended 2-2, but consider this:
1) Lotte lost by two runs in each of the Tokyo games. Yomiuri lost in Chiba by an average of 9 runs.
2) Yomiuri ran out to big leads at home only to have the pitching implode late, requiring a visit from closer Kroon. Lotte’s pitching at home had such a hammer lock on the Giants bats that Nishimura substituted freely in the late innings with people who rarely saw action in close games (Furuya, Aono).
3) Yomiuri belted 8 HRs in that dank batting cage-like Tokyo Dome yet could only manage a single run on a sac fly in a normal park. I can’t be bothered to do any research on the topic but I suspect their home/road HRs splits are extremely heavily tilted towards home.
So the standings may say we tied them but the moral edge must go to Our Men of Lotte. Sweet.
In this game Yomiuri actually cranked out all of their offense in the top of the first. Sakamoto hit a leadoff double and was eventually brought home by the aforementioned Ogasawara sac fly. Lotte grabbed that run right back in the bottom of the first thanks to three hits capped by a timely single by Iguchi (scoring Tsuyoshi, who is now up to an insane 54 runs scored this year and a .364 BA/1.016 OPS). Lotte took the lead in the bottom of the second with a single by Saburo and a great double by Fukuura (in the DH spot – now batting .324 w/a .883 OPS but without enough ABs to qualify for the leaders).
Lotte completely busted the game open in the 4th thanks to 6 singles including 5 in a row off Yomiuri starter Dicky Gonzales. The real highlight came via the first NPB RBI for rookie CF Yoshifumi Okada, who got the start in his second ichi-gun appearance ever. It was a bit eerie to see a nice rookie patrolling CF, delivering clutch hits, and stealing some bases (Okada had 2 SBs in the game). For one game, at least, it felt like our Ogino (Ta-Ka-Shi!) was back – alas, not for another 6-7 weeks.
When I got home after the game I watched Yakyuu Suki News on J-Sports – one of the talking heads labeled Okada as “S-Okada” for “Speedy Okada” (as opposed to Orix’s T-Okada, which could be Timely Okada after that 3-run walkoff HR he had on Wednesday. But I digress.). It was a great debut, hopefully he can continue to fill in nicely until Ogino/Hayasaka can get back in the lineup.
Lotte capped the scoring in the 6th with a sweet RBI triple by Tsuyoshi (scoring Okada) and a sac fly by Imae. Naruse went the distance on 133 pitches, guaranteeing the Giants wouldn’t get more than that one early run. Is 1 run given up over 4 games/38 innings good or what? All the starters recorded at least one hit tonight as well as the team racked up 15 hits in all. Tsuyoshi, Kim Tae Kyun, Saburo, Fukuura, and Satozaki all had multiple hit games.
For this game I sat with some friends in one of the great home ouendan picnic boxes. These are perfect if you are with a few other Lotte maniacs and want a spot to enjoy the game together. I got to get all loud with the normal gaiya ouendan (though separated as the boxes are attached to the infield, not outfield section) – even got to share long distance high fives every time we scored. Good stuff.
Up next is the last road trip of interleague – first to Nagoya to take on Chunichi and then to Jingu for the Swallows. Being the maniac that I am, I’ll be at all 4 road games!
I made a road trip last weekend to see our guys play at Koshien, home of the Hanshin Tigers. I haven’t yet gotten around to writing up that trip (maybe tomorrow? How long have I been saying that?) but it didn’t work out so well, either for the team or for myself as it was rainy and dismal. Lotte dropped both games to the Tigers, then beat up on Hiroshima 9-1 behind 4 HRs (2 by Iguchi) and a lovely 11-K performance by Bill Murphy. Still, Hiroshima bounced back the next night behind the great pitching of current Central League best pitcher Kenta Maeda.
We needed to come home.
Amidst threats of rain and still more injuries emerged some truly superb pitching, both by the starters and the pen, and Lotte finished off the visiting Yokohama Bay Stars via consecutive shutouts – 5-0 on Saturday, 1-0 on Sunday. That home cooking sure must have tasted good.
For Saturday’s game I scored some nice field level seats but the lighting was just awful the whole game thanks to the heavy clouds in the area. I fought my camera settings all day and ended up going pure manual settings – still, I took my usual ton of pics (as you can see below), but it wasn’t easy. For my fellow photo nuts, I brought an old manual Olympus 300/4.5 lens to the game and gave it a go. It’s a manual focus lens, which isn’t as bad a problem for action photography as you’d think as you can just zone focus and anticipate the action, but the low light made focusing very challenging. Still, I took a couple of decent pics – see the final three pics at the bottom of Saburo, Murata, and Tsuyoshi.
Anyway – back to baseball.
Game 1 was on paper not a great matchup – Bay Stars castoff Yuji Yoshimi pitching against his old team and perennial ace Daisuke Miura. The sneaky part of this matchup was that our Yoshimi – welcomed to the starting rotation thanks to injuries to Karakawa and Ono and ineffectiveness by Ohmine – pitched great in his first start of the season last week and Miura is now 36 and in the midst of arguably the worst season of his career. The Lotte offense had to compensate for the loss of Takashi Ogino for 2 more months – and believe me his absence has hurt mightily already – but as of late Tsuyoshi has been out of his frickin’ MIND. He’s up to a batting average of around .360, took a 22 game hitting streak (snapped on Sunday) and has an OPS just a smidge south of 1.000… from the leadoff spot!
Captain Tsuyoshi keeping the streak alive
Yoshimi was just superb on Saturday. He really had the Yokohama bats confused all day. His outing was quite short – for some reason Nishimura pulled him after only 72 pitches at the top of the 7th – but in that time he gave up only 3 hits and no runs.
2-0 on the season, what a nice start!
I think perhaps Nishimura wanted to give the pen some work as the setup-setup-closer combo hadn’t been used in quite some time. Itoh struck out two in his one perfect inning of work while Yabuta gave up a leadoff single but struck out the side afterwards, and Kobayashi mopped up the 9th without giving up a run to seal the victory. As much as I run down Itoh (and believe me, I do all the time at the stadium) he’s been quite good at holding a lead in these situations.
Is a 0.00 ERA any good?
On the Bay Stars side, Miura certainly wasn’t awful but he sure was worse than the Lotte staff. He loaded up the bases in the second on a walk, a single, and a bases-loading plunk of Satozaki. The stage was set for Imae – he pops one right at Castillo in right, but Castillo breaks the wrong way, and by the time he recovers the ball drops in at the warning track, 2 runs are in, and Lotte has a 2-0 early lead.
Eek, that hurts
On a day he was honored for his 1000th hit, Saburo decided to stretch the Lotte lead a bit. In the 6th, he cranks a solo shot to make the score 3-0! With that, Miura is gone after the inning.
Not good enough on this day, fortunately
In the 8th, Fukuura continued his hot May with a big 2-run blast to right! This time there’s no video controversy, just jubilation.
We have a dinger!Oh yeah
It looked like Tsuyoshi would have a hard time continuing his hit streak as of the 7th he had grounded out three times, but he got on in fine fashion with a 7th inning double. He added another hit and a stolen base in the 8th for good measure.
He’s in, and the ball skips on by
For Sunday’s game, believe it or not I didn’t so much as take my camera out of the bag. It was a much nicer day for photography but I was in the mood to just cheer – loudly – and enjoy the nice day. I ran into my upstairs neighbor at my train station, she was meeting a friend at the stadium so we chatted on the way there. I also met on the platform a guy visiting from Korea for work. He spoke excellent Japanese, much better than mine, and wanted to see how his countryman Kim Tae Kyun was doing. I was surprised that he knew so much about Japanese baseball, not just the Korean players in the league.
My neighbor asked me if I often sit in the field seats as I did on Saturday. I said “Nah, not really. Why, did you see me there yesterday?” “Yes, you were on TV.” Of course I was. I’m up to a confirmed 6 or 7 times on TV this year and it’s not even June yet…
Sunday’s pitching matchup starred the inimitable Watanabe against Yokohama rookie Kaga, who quite honestly I wasn’t familiar with at all (as I really don’t pay attention to the Central league aside from the occasional Yakult or Hanshin game). Both pitchers were exceptional – Kaga went 8 giving up no runs on 4 hits, while Shunsuke was even better. He had a very dodgy outing last time out at Koshien (again, I need to write that up!) but on this day he had just brillant command of his pitches. I don’t think I’ve seen him that strong ever, actually. He went 9 innings, gave up only 4 hits. He was perfect the first 3 innings and had only faced the minimum through 6 (thanks to a single/pickoff in the 4th). With both staffs so strong, it was inevitable that the game would be decided in bonus time – a super-sized game, if you will.
Yokohama got two baserunners on in each of the 9th, 10th, and 11th innings but thanks to the great pitching of Watanabe, Kobayashi, and Yabuta they were unable to plate anyone. The stage was set for the bottom of the 11th. With one out, Satozaki ripped a huge one deep into the right field stands for a sayonara HR! We just went CRAZY. The team rushed the field, the fans fell all over each other in glee, and we sang song after song after song. Great times.
So with that dramatic finish, Lotte and Yokohama finish their season series with Lotte taking all 4 games. The Marines are a perfect 6-0 at home in interleague play and are tied for the top of the interleague table. With Seibu’s loss to Gomiuri on Sunday night we are also just 0.5 games out of first. Given the emergency ward look of the roster now, that’s a great place to be.
Speaking of emergency ward – I’ve already lamented repeatedly the absence of Takashi Ogino. I also mentioned Ono (out for at least another start) and Karakawa (out for a few more weeks). This weekend we also got news former closer Tadahiro Ogino underwent surgery on his elbow (though he hasn’t pitched this year anyway) and during this game Takashi Ogino’s replacement, Hayasaka, apparently wrecked his knee when he tried to steal in the 4th. It was a pretty frightening play to see live – he went hard into the bag, was tagged out, and writhed on the ground in obvious pain until the stretcher came very quickly onto the field. It looks like ligament damage so he might be out for some time.
But the team is playing well as a team, so I believe they’ll be able to overcome these injuries and continue to play strongly.
As I mentioned I took a bunch of pics, even with the crappy light on Saturday, so here’s some more views from Saturday’s action. Birthday Boy Kim Tae Kyun likes what he sees
I swear the fish was thiiis big2009 4th round pick Kiyota makes an appearancePretty sweet, wasn’t it?The happy heroEven cheerleaders are in the interleague spiritA blast, but it just missesKick back and relaxHayasaka GO!Dig for that outShould have been outta the park(Shot with the manual lens) Saburo recieves warm congratulations(Shot with the manual lens) Murate takes a big cut, but doesn’t get a clean hit(Shot with the manual lens) Speedostar!
This is 90% picture post and 10% game talk, though if you added it up by KB it would be more like 99.9% picture post and, well, you get the idea. Much like Friday night’s game this game was over very, very early as Lotte poured on the offense over visiting Yakult in a 20 – 4 rout to seal the two game sweep.
Here’s what you really need to know about this game:
– Lotte starter Yuji Yoshimi pitched great in his first ichi-gun game in a Lotte uniform. He was bought by Lotte from Yokohama two weeks ago – not traded for a player – despite being only 32, left-handed, having a sub 4.50 ERA the past 5 years, a 2-1 K/BB ratio, and 6 K/9. Why has Yokohama been so bad for so long? Hmm. Interestingly, when I heard Lotte acquired Yoshimi I thought “WOW! Kazuki Yoshimi” but hey, so far I like our Yoshimi just fine. For the game, he went 6 innings, giving up only 2 runs on 7 hits with 6 Ks. Nice debut!
– Every Lotte starter got a hit. The last holdout was Saburo – I was ragging on him when he came to bat in the 6th with 2 Ks and a pop to third (and with Lotte holding a 13 – 2 lead at this point). Apparently everyone else must have been giving him a hard time, too – so he promptly jacked a pitch off of Kawashima to deep left for a homer.
– Four Lotte players had 3 RBI – Tsuyoshi, Hayasaka, Ohmatsu, and Imae. Iguchi and Kim Tae Kyun had 2 RBIs each while Saburo and Imae had the other two.
– Even in a massive offensive explosion Tsuyoshi had an AMAZING game. He went 5-5 with a walk, a double, a homer, and an infield hit. He scored 5 runs which has got to be one of the rarer feats I can think of. Think about it – not only must you get on base a minimum of 5 times but the hitters behind you must be productive as well.
– Likewise, Imae came to the plate in the 7th with a single, double, and a triple – only needing a HR to complete the cycle. What does he do? He blasts a deep drive, way back, deep right center…. off the top of the fence. He hustles in for a double with a huge grin on his face. So close! 4-5 with 3 RBI and 8 total bases is still a great game by any standard.
– Yakult manager Takada was seemingly trying to get his young starter, 2009 first round draft pick Masato Nakazawa, killed. Even though it was clear Nakazawa had nothing this day Takada kept him in to get beat up again and again. He ended up giving up 10 runs, 8 earned, and it could have been worse as Lotte had the bases loaded and nobody out in the bottom of the first yet had to settle for a single run (on a DP ball, no less). Is that really the best thing for a young starter’s confidence?
Yakult slapped on some meaningless runs later in the game off an Iihara triple, a Guiel single, and a D’ Antona HR. The 4 runs Yakult racked up late were negated and then some by the 7 runs Lotte scored in the 7th and 8th, though.
There were many great performances but above all it was a great team performance. I follow Yakult somewhat closely and hate to see them get beat up like this – I would of course like for us to beat Yakult but would rather we save the AAA Prime Ass-Kickings for Yomiuri/Seibu/Daiei…
As promised (threatened) – here’s many pictures from this game’s action.
Kim Tae Kyun smashes oneKobe! Kobe! Kobe! Kobe! Kobe! Kobe! Kobe! Kobe!Tsuyoshi lunges for a catchBeneath the smiles and colors sits a bird with a gunGuiel seems not-too-happyHe wants the homer, but he’ll take the doubleNemoto beats out an infield singleI don’t think it was a solid hitGo deep, man! Deeper!Hustling out an infield hit brings him joyYour prize, one stuffed seagullHeiuchi – a man with a purposeShe loves Marines, and Orion beerBanzai, indeedCan’t get enough of that Minami
Thou shalt get caught up on posting, Steve! Actually, I have a great excuse – I love love love, love Marines so much I was out of town on a road trip. So even though I went to both of the Lotte games versus Yakult last Friday and Saturday — and took way, way too many pictures on Saturday — I haven’t really had a chance to post until now.
Friday’s game was not exactly what I would call dramatic. Lotte jumped out to a very early 5-0 lead, put on the cruise control, and slept their way to a 6-3 victory. This game was notable for a few things, though. Most importantly, super impact rookie stole his league leading 25 base of the year – and apparently wrecked his knee bad enough on the play that he will be out for as much as two months (Thanks to Gen at Yakyu Baka for the translation). The game was also highlighted by one of the oddest plays I have seen by a star player in ages.
The scene: it’s the bottom the first, score tied at zero. Lotte has had three walks and a double but scored no runs thanks to some odd baserunning. Up comes Saburo – bases are juiced. He lifts a high pop to deep center, Aoki is fixated on it’s flight. Well, it LOOKS like he is fixated on it’s flight – he’s planted his feet and is staring upwards, not signaling to anyone. Ball drops what looks to be from my perspective about 15 feet in front of him – the replay I saw on TV later showed it was a good 20 feet right, too. Why didn’t he move? Why didn’t he signal for help – the other outfielders may have had a chance. I certainly didn’t mind – the error allowed three runs to score on a sure 3rd out. But wait – it was ruled… a hit? Who gets the RBIs on that one? I’ll give them unofficially to Aoki.
Actually, as the Lotte players came out on defense at the start of the next inning I tried to get an “Aoki! Aoki! Aoki!” chant going, but I only got chuckles.
With the gift of three runs Lotte decided to add a few more. First Fukuura lines a double into the center left gap – Aoki almost got to it but missed it by just a bit. After a Sato walk Imae lines a single to make it 5-0 – and put us Lotte fans in a state of relaxed bliss. Even our cheerleaders decided they could fly.
Or jump, whatever.
Naruse was on the hill and he was, well, very 2010 Naruse-like. He was great for the first 6 innings, scattering 3 hits and no runs, but in the 7th he hung another fat pitch that Miyamoto knocked out. It was Naruse’s 17th – 17th!!! – HR yielded so far. He’s actually on a pace to give up the most HRs in 20 years, yet he has a 3.28 ERA and is striking out batters at over 8 Ks/9. Weird year for our ace.
Since I was in a good spot, I shot some video of Mar-Kun doing the Nishimura victory dance (I think we have three victory songs so far this year) and the indispensable “Banzai!” with the hero of the day (Naruse) at the end of the game.
The Marines and BayStars played the second of two interleague games in Yokohama tonight. What was a close game early turned on some controversy, injuries, and a hell of a lot of pitching changes. In the late stages, our Chiba Lotte Marines pulled away to seal a 14-6 road victory and the 2-game series sweep of Yokohama. The victory was a total team effort as 8 men recorded RBIs, 7 pitchers took the hill, and 14 position players played.
I would like to give you great, in-depth detail of the early innings but the broadcasters of the Yokohama home games in their infinite wisdom only started coverage at 7pm and ended it at 9:30pm. I only had the option of watching the first three innings via highlights – and “Pacific League Movie” on YouTube isn’t showing any of the interleague games! How do BayStars fans put up with such crappy coverage? I’m glad 80 % or so of the Chiba games are on J-Sports, Gaora, or A+.
ANYWAY, young Yuki Karakawa got the start tonight but was knocked out before I had a chance to watch him pitch, thanks to taking a line drive off his right hand. He was pulled after the second inning and taken to a hospital for tests, which apparently came back OK (someone kindly correct me if I read the reports wrong in Japanese). He was back in the dugout for the end of the game, so hopefully it’s nothing too bad.
Karakawa gave up a run in the second before leaving the game; coupled with the run Lotte scored in the first on a Kim Tae Kyun ground out (after an Ogino double – 2-6 on the night with 2 runs scored and an Iguchi single – 4-5 with an RBI and 2 runs scored) the game was tied after two. Ohtani took over for Karakawa and promptly coughed up a pair of runs on RBI singles by Murata and Terrmel Sledge. It was 3-1 Yokohama after 3.
In the 4th Lotte clawed a bit back, thanks to a double by Ohmatsu, a single by Saburo, and a sac fly by Imae. Lotte tied it in the 5th in a very typical manner for this year – Ogino singled to center with two outs, stole second on a freakin’ pitchout, and scored on Iguchi’s single to center. That’s really our offensive season, encapsulated – 3-3 after the top of the 5th.
In the bottom of the 5th Akichika (in for his second inning of relief of Ohtani – he actually got a chance to bat in the top of the inning) gave up the go-ahead run, but it wasn’t really his fault. Ishikawa singled to right, Saburo bobbled the ball so that Ogino had to field it. Ishikawa advanced on a passed ball by Matoba (getting the start behind the plate) and scored on a sac fly by Murata. 4-3 Yokohama after 5.
Sanada took over for Yokohama starter Tomo Ohka in the 6th and he was just brutal. A leadoff double by Ohmatsu, a one-out single by Imae, and a walk to Matoba loaded the bases. With Akichika’s spot coming up, Nishimura pinch hit with Fukuura. The veteran first baseman absolutely blasted a ball perhaps 20 rows up into the right field stands for a grand slam! – WAIT!, it’s called foul! I practically fall out of my chair, and Nishimura-kantoku does fall out of the dugout, heading right for the ump. I couldn’t believe the call, when I saw it live it looked to be fair by 20 feet. The local broadcast only had the shot on one view, an above the first base dugout cam. Still the umps went to the video replay. I thought it stood no chance of being overturned despite the seemingly obvious in-fair-territory hit, but after a few minutes of consultation – grand slam indeed! WOW. The 4-3 deficit was instantly a 7-4 lead!
That took the wind right out of Yokohama’s sails. I’m not joking, you could see it on their relievers’ faces. From that point on the hits kept coming and coming for Lotte:
3 more hits in the 7th for two runs, including an RBI double by Imae that was hit to dead center, right off the top of the wall
5 more in the 8th for 4 more runs, including the first HR in 2 years for Shunichi Nemoto (which barely, barely cleared the fence in play) and a three-run blast to right by Kim Tae Kyun (his 10th on the year)
Another run in the 9th via solo HR by Tsuyoshi
Lotte ended up with a season high 14 runs in total on 19 hits. Yokohama scratched out two more runs but with their bullpen implosion they were of no consequence. The game ended mysteriously as the broadcast completed in the middle of the 9th, but I heard a rumor that the visiting Lotte fans were happy and there was a hero interview (though I don’t know who it was, presumably Fukuura).
Next up is the Kyojin – 2009 champions Yomiuri, Saturday and Sunday at the “Big, Dimly Lit, Cramped, and Too Easy to Hit Homers Out of Egg (Tokyo Dome)”. It’s the official name, I swear. Starters presumably will be Naruse on Saturday and Ohmine on Sunday, but they are not confirmed yet. I’ll be in the stands on Sunday, so look for a report then!
Every once in a while I try to fake being a Real Baseball Writer – I’ll whip out a stat or two, try to argue a point, basically do something other than waste a whole bunch of bandwidth with obsessive amounts of photos and snide comments. (OK – you are now thinking “Yeah right, when did you do anything other than have a 10Mb front page + a bunch of half-assed jokes?” Shaddup, I’m on a roll.) Interleague play is just about upon us – Lotte opens on Wednesday in Yokohama – and the season is ever so slightly past the 25% mark so I figured now would be a good time as any.
If you are a bottom line guy or gal – as I am – you can’t really argue with the form of Chiba Lotte in the first 3/2 months. Currently our guys are just a half game back of (grr) Seibu and half a game up on Daiei. More importantly, all three teams at the top are well separated from the rest of the three teams. Lotte’s form hasn’t been nearly as strong in the past few weeks as the first month but it’s still been good enough to stay in a great position, which is all that counts. The team has the look of a team that will make the playoffs and do some damage, though obviously there’s a hell of a lot of time left between 10 May and the end of the season.
I’m not going to whip up grades for everyone at this early stage, but here’s the players I think most contributed to the team’s success so far.
Best Player
It’s a tough race – pretty much everyone in the lineup has given a significant offensive contribution at one time or another. The only glaring weak spot has been at the DH position – Fukuura has gotten the bulk of the ABs in this slot and has performed just OK with a .790 OPS in a bit under 90 PAs. Saburo is 4th in the league in Ks and has a pretty woeful .739 OPS.
The rest of the offense has been spectacular. The team leads all of NPB in runs scored and team BA (by almost 25 points). Lotte has 3 of the top 4 in OPS (5 of the top 10), 3 of the top 4 in BA. One player, though, has been exceptional even by the standards of this group – Iguchi. He leads the league in (deep breath): OPS (by over 100 points, 1.002), OBP (by 55 points), walks (by 13), doubles (by 7 – his 18 is on pace to destroy the NPB record for a season) and is third in RBI. It’s indisputable – he’s been the best player for Lotte so far, and is probably the best player in the Pacific League this year (with really only Jose Ortiz in the argument)
Best Pitcher
This hasn’t been the strong point of the season to date, despite a good early start. Naruse has been nice most of the season, even dominant at times, but he’s been victimized by way too many HRs (13 so far, more than twice any other pitcher in the Pacific League). In fact, if you drop his HR total to the league average (around 4) his ERA drops to sub 2.00. Unfortunately, they do count.
No, the best pitcher so far has to be our newly converted closer, Hiroyuki Kobayashi (doesn’t it seem natural to have a Kobayashi as the Lotte closer?) He’s made 12 appearances and has yet to yield a run, is getting punch-outs at a 12 K/9 clip, and has recorded a RIP of 0.75. He has but 7 saves but quite frankly with the massive run differential in many of Lotte’s games he just hasn’t had that much opportunity. Still, perfection is perfection.
Impact Rookie
Ah, controversy. Most might say our new masher in the cleanup spot – Kim Tae Kyun – is the winner of this one. It’s hard to argue with him – .929 OPS (3rd), 9 HRs (2nd), 37 RBI (2nd), 6 GW RBI (first, by a bunch) and has played great defense. The other main addition is our first round draft pick, Takashi Ogino. You’ve probably already guessed that I think Ogino is the greater impact addition. Rather than making my case by pointing out holes in Tae Kyun’s game (and they are very, very big holes – the 45 Ks, lackadaisical base running, and the positively gruesome .276 BA with runners in scoring position) I’ll make the positive case for Ogino:
He’s second in the league in BA (.331), first in steals (24) and sacrifices (18) in a largely thankless role in the two-spot. In that spot he has absolutely delivered when he has needed to – look at his .386 BA with RISP for proof. He advances the runners in front of him, given space on the base paths he destroys them ( 4 steals last Sunday!), and he always gets himself in a position to score once he reaches base. I don’t know what the sabermetric stat for on-base slugging is (that is, number of bases added after reaching safely, via steal, taking the extra base, advancing on a sacrifice or passed ball, etc) but he would have to rank insanely high. In my opinion, he’s been the second most important impact player on for the offense this year.
Given Tae Kyun’s huge numbers as of late (his 7 HRs in 7 games streak ended Sunday) he could certainly become the best rookie if not the best offensive threat on the team, but for now it’s Ogino.
What’s not in dispute is the season has been a smashing success to this point. Let’s hope it continues in the interleague series.
