Hideaki Wakui – Page 6

Rival Series 1: Lotte @ Seibu, 25-27 July 2014

Another boost for Our Marines came off the field with free agent signing Alfredo Despaigne earlier in the week. We’re four games out of the post-season heading into this weekend. Maybe the slugger from Cuba is just the man we need to help us catch the 3rd place Fighters, but first we must get past the 4th place Lions. That brings us to this weekend’s rival series with the Lions at the Seibu Dome. The Lions jumped a half game in front of us on Wednesday, but this weekend we have the chance to leap frog them back into 4th place before Despaigne’s debut. We’re not going anywhere though without some more reliable pitching, perhaps the potential returns of Wakui and/or Naruse this weekend can provide that. Fingers crossed.

Orix @ Lotte, 27-29 June 2014

Looks like we’ve made it out of interleague alive. We finished with a 12-12 record versus the Central League, alternating wins and loss in our last 11 games. Overall, June as been a little less kind to us, with Our Marines going 6-9 so far in the month. At 31-35-1, we sit two games back of Nippon Ham for the 3rd spot in the PL. We return to the PL schedule this weekend with the first place Orix Buffaloes coming to Chiba. Orix leads SoftBank by .5 games, and is 10 games up on us.

Interleague Series 11: Lotte @ Chunichi, 21-22 June 2014

The batting order seems to have been optimized – after weeks of frustration at the plate, Our Marines have put up 8, 7, 8, 5, 6, and 6 runs up in the past 3 series. Now the pitching needs some optimization as well, as despite those high scoring outputs Chiba is just 3-3 in those six games.

Interleague Series 3: Lotte @ Hanshin, 25-26 May 2014

The start of interleague could not be any better for Our Marines. The 4 game sweep of Yakult and Kyojin means Chiba has won 5 in a row. The pitching last series was great, and the bats have kept up the efficient production. Can everyone keep it up as the team hits the road?

Interleague Series 1: Yakult @ Lotte, 20-21 May 2014

I Love Interleague play. I always say this and it’s simply true. There’s some changes I would make to the format – the proposal to split the play into two halves, one earlier and one later in the season – makes sense to me, but as it stands the set of short, two game series against all the CL teams is pretty neat. One of the highlights for me is the 2 series with Yakult as I follow Yakult a bit and have been known to cheer them on at Jingu when Lotte is off or out of town.