Category Archives: News

NPB news: Nov. 4, 2023

A day late here, because of a long night banging out potential clinching stories for the day job, so I was too whacked to write about Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s marvelous Game 6 with the series on the line after he’d been beat up in his last three postseason starts since 2022’s Game 1.

I didn’t have access to TV or highlights again, so I had to depend on my bird’s-eye view of home plate, meaning I could distinguish a few pitches sometimes but mostly just whether the ball was over the plate or not.

Saturday’s Game 6

Buffaloes 5, Tigers 1: At Kyocera UFO Dome, Shoki Murakami returned to Osaka for a rematch with Japan’s ace of aces, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Murakami tried as hard as he could to get the outside strikes both pitchers got in Game 1, but ump Atsushi Fukuya wasn’t playing, and the Tigers rookie and catcher Seishiro Sakamoto got behind in counts trying to get strikes three or four inches off the outside corner.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s 14 strikeouts in Japan Series Game 6.
Continue reading NPB news: Nov. 4, 2023

NPB news: Nov. 2, 2023

Japan Series Game 5 was played at Koshien Stadium Thursday, with the series tied 2-2 after Hanshin’s 4-3 walk-off win Wednesday.

Thursday’s Game 5

Tigers 6, Buffaloes 2: At Koshien Stadium, Orix’s bullpen spoiled a Koshien feel-good story for Daiki Tajima, who left with a 2-0 lead in the eighth with Masato Morishita making up for a poor game with a come-from-behind two-run triple off rookie Yuki Udagawa.

Continue reading NPB news: Nov. 2, 2023