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NPB game, news of Aug. 1

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Pacific League

Hawks 11, Lions 10

At MetLife Dome, SoftBank salvaged their second-straight series finale, avoiding a sweep at the hands of Seibu thanks to a pair of two-run Alfredo Despaigne home runs. Despaigne went 4-for-5 with three runs.

A night after the Lions and Hawks played just the third game at MetLife Dome this season in which neither team scored more than two runs, the two teams played the season’s second in game in which both teams scored at least 10. The Hawks won that one, too, 12-11 over the Eagles on May 3 in Fukuoka.

Lions rookie Ryusei Sato, Seibu’s seventh draft pick last autumn out of university started at third base, and went 3-for-5 with two doubles and four RBIs. Ernesto Mejia went 2-for-3 with a two-run double and a sac fly for the Lions.

Game highlights are HERE.

Eagles 3, Fighters 1

At Sapporo Dome, Eigoro Mogi tripled and scored the game’s first run and singled in the tie-breaking run as Rakuten got past Nippon Ham’s best starting pitcher Kohei Arihara (11-5).

Mogi scored on a Hideto Asamura single. Asamura’s 23rd home run provided a ninth-inning insurance run. Arihara allowed two runs on five hits and a walk over seven innings, while striking out seven.

Yoshinao Kamata started for Rakuten and allowed a run over three innings in his second-straight abbreviated start. Wataru Karashima (7-5) scattered three hits and three walks over three scoreless innings and pitched out of a pair of one-out, bases-loaded pickles to get the win for the Eagles. Frank Herrmann led a trio of scoreless innings out of the visitors’ bullpen with Yuki Matsui earning his Japan-high 28th save.

Eagles manager Yosuke Hiraishi took a page out of Nippon Ham Fighters manager Hideki Kuriyama’s book by using two starters instead of one. Kamata is coming off elbow and shoulder surgery last year, while Karashima was given a lighter outing to give him a break.

Game highlights are HERE.

Marines 7, Buffaloes 6, 12 innings

At Zozo Marine Stadium, Leonys Martin homered for the third time in six Japan games and drew a bases-loaded walk in the 12th to lift Lotte over Orix. Martin, who went 3-for-6 with two runs scored, also has two assists from right field for the Marines.

Masataka Yoshida scored three runs for the Buffaloes, while Yuma Mune and Stefen Romero each drove in two. Brandon Laird went 0-for-2 and came out of the game in the third inning at the instruction of umpire Koichi Nagai after they debated the location of the 3-2 pitch Laird had looked at.

Mike Bolsinger started and allowed two runs over five innings for the Marines.

Game highlights are HERE.

Central League

Swallows 4, BayStars 2

At Yokohama Stadium, Yakult lefty Hiroki Yamada (4-0) beat DeNA, going six innings for the first time in three years. He’s now won four-straight starts for the second time in his career and the first time since 2012.

Yamada’s last six-inning start came with the SoftBank Hawks on June 7, 2016 against the BayStars in Fukuoka.

Swallows rookie Munetaka Murakami hit his 21st home run, tying the game 1-1 in the second.

Carp 8, Giants 2

At Tokyo Dome, Yusuke Nomura (5-3) overcame two shaky innings to post his second straight win, allowing a run over six innings as Hiroshima came from behind to beat league-leading Yomiuri and pull within four games of the Giants.

Ryuhei Matsuyama was about two steps two slow to rob two Giants of first-inning RBI doubles. The rotund slugger made a leaping grab in the left-center gap to rob Hayato Sakamoto, but came a step short of keeping Yoshihiro Maru’s fly from dropping at the foul line.

If Matsuyama had anything to make up for, he did so in the fourth, when he tied the game with the fourth home run of his injury-hit season.

Alejandro Mejia went 3-for-3, his second double igniting Hiroshima’s four-run seventh, when Giants starter Cristopher Mercedes (6-6) from the game.

Game highlights are HERE.

Tigers 3, Dragons 2

At Koshien Stadium, Shintaro Fujinami made his belated first-team debut. The lanky right-hander, whose career has been plagued by an inability to throw strikes, walked six and hit two in his 4-1/3 innings on the mound, but allowed just one run in Hanshin’s win over Chunichi.

“Well, nobody’s perfect,” Tigers manger Akihiro Yano said. “The bottom line was he allowed just one run. He got a great ovation from the crowd, and I’m sure that meant a lot to him. I expect he’ll take heart from that, and work things out.”

Game highlights are HERE.

Baseball, Commentary, News, Paid Content, Research

Ramichanalytics Part I

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When it comes to making use of analytics, DeNA BayStars manager Alex Ramirez may not be on the cutting edge, but he does his homework. He may not know lots of percentages but he does pay rigorous attention to his splits and other parts of the game, and that’s more than a lot of managers can say.

Although I missed out on asking him about his “Put the cleanup hitter in the No. 2 hole magic trick,” he is still using his pitchers to bat eighth again, and I was curious if he was aware of one rationale for putting your worst hitter eighth.

To cut to the chase, Tango, Lichtman, and Dolphin concluded that flipping a position player into the No. 9 spot and having the pitcher bat eighth can increase an average lineup’s production over a 162-game season by 2.47 runs per season. Not much, but not zero. The idea is that the No. 9 hitter does more than just create outs with runners on base ahead of him from the bottom of the order. He also gets on base for the 1-2-3 hitters, something most pitchers not named Shohei Ohtani are really, really bad at doing.

Nobody in professional baseball has used his pitchers to bat eighth as much as Ramirez. He originally started the practice in 2017 and used it throughout the 2018 season before abandoning it over the winter. On Wednesday in Yokohama, I asked Ramirez if he was familiar with the analytical advantage of batting the pitcher eighth.

He didn’t answer the question but did explain his rationale for using his pitcher’s in the No. 8 hole, and it has zero to do with the idea of using No. 9 as a “second leadoff hitter.” Instead, it has to do with what happens when the No. 8 hitter comes up with a runner on first base.

“The reason why it has been working, is when I use the pitcher as an eighth hitter and I bunt, I have a chance to score, a better chance to score in that situation (instead of having the No. 8 hitter swing away and leave the pitcher to clean up),” Ramirez said. “But that being said, you need to use somebody who is good batting with runners in scoring position as the ninth hitter. It cannot be just anybody.”

“Sometimes you have to think whether you want to go with a straight No. 8 hitter or have the pitcher in there and have him bunt for the ninth hitter. It depends on the situation.”