Category Archives: Baseball

Baseball, News, Paid Content

NPB games of May 24, 2019

Leave a comment

Central League

Carp 8, Giants 3

At Tokyo Dome, Xavier Batista hit a pair of solo home runs, giving the former Cubs farmhand 11 on the season as Hiroshima rolled to its 10th straight win.

Seiya Suzuki hit his 14th for Hiroshima as the Carp overcame three solo home runs by the Giants, including two by shortstop Hayato Sakamoto, who took over the league lead with his 14th and 15th.

Taylor Jungmann (3-1) gave up four runs on four hits and a hit batsman over five innings, while striking out three for the Giants. Rookie Hiroki Tokoda (5-2) allowed three runs over five innings, but five Carp relievers allowed just three base runners over the final four innings.

Dragons 6, Swallows 1

At Jingu Stadium, rookie Akiyoshi Katsuno (1-1) allowed a run over 6-1/3 innings as Chunichi handed Yakult its ninth straight loss. Yohei Oshima went 4-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs, while Shuhei Takahashi drove in three more for the visitors.

Yasuhiro Ogawa (1-6) allowed three runs, two earned, while striking out eight over six innings, but Wladimir Balentien accounted for Yakult’s only run, with his 11th home run of the season.

Tigers 3, BayStars 2

At Yokohama Stadium, Hanshin cashed in its scoring opportunities, while DeNA put runners on but could only manage a two-run, first-inning homer by cleanup hitter Yoshitomo Tsutsugo. The Tigers broke a 2-2, seventh-inning tie on a triple by rookie Koji Chikamoto and an RBI double by 24-year-old cleanup hitter Yusuke Oyama, who reached base three times.

The BayStars’ Neftali Soto reached four times, but Hanshin starter Yuki Nishi twice struck Tsutsugo out with runners in scoring position. Rafael Dolis worked the ninth for his 11th save.

Pacific League

Eagles 3, Buffaloes 2

At Rakuten Seimei Park, Manabu Mima (3-3) allowed two runs over six innings, and rookie Ryosuke Tatsumi drove in one run with a triple and scored the other in a two-run fifth inning.

Orix starter Taisuke Yamaoka (4-1) allowed five hits and two walks, while striking out nine on 96 pitches over the eight-inning complete game loss.

The Buffaloes’ struggling offense wasted a golden opportunity in the seventh against reliever Alan Busenitz, but the right-hander escaped a one-out bases-loaded jam and the Eagles bullpen retired the last eight batters to close it out. Sung Chia-hao worked the eighth, while Yuki Matsui recorded his 12th save.

Lions 10, Fighters 5

At MetLife Dome, seibu came from a run down in a five-run fifth inning, highlighted by Sosuke Genda’s game-tying RBI double and Shuta Tonosaki’s two-run homer.

Tonosaki also doubled, tripled, walked, scored three runs and drove in four. Fighters starter Takayuki Kato (1-4) and Lions starter Daiki Enokida (2-1) each gave up five runs, but Seibu’s bullpen delivered four scoreless innings.

Hawks 6, Marines 3, 10 innings

At Zozo Marine Stadium, SoftBank starter Kodai Senga, working on five days rest, allowed two runs over eight innings, while striking out nine, but failed to win his sixth straight start.

Hawks closer Yuito mori (2-3) allowed a solo homer in the ninth to Ikuhiro Kiyota as Lotte tied it. But Marines reliever Naoya Masuda (2-3) gave up three runs for the second-straight game, surrendering Alfredo Despaigne’s second two-run homer, and a solo shot to Nobuhiro Matsuda.

Yurisbel Gracial had four hits and scored three runs, while Cuban compatriot Livan Moinelo worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his first save.

News

  • The Orix Buffaloes’ position players spent their day off Thursday taking extra batting practice after the club failed to record 10 hits in 20 consecutive games. That hadn’t happened to the franchise since the Hankyu Braves failed to reach double digits in hits for 28 straight games in 1963.
  • The Chunichi Dragons have not cleared 38-year-old Daisuke Matsuzaka to begin pitching in rehab games, noting that the condition of his right shoulder has not improved. He was hurt in February when a fan gave him a particularly strong high five during a fan event in Okinawa.
  • The Dragons called up Steven Moya on Friday, and put him in the starting lineup for the first time this season, batting sixth and playing right field in the absence of injured regular Ryosuke Hirata. In 42 farm games, Moya has posted a .372 OBP and a .559 slugging average in the pitcher-friendly Western League.
  • The Nippon Ham Fighters activated Kotaro Kiyomiya for the first time this season after he broke the hamate bone in his right hand on March 3. Kiyomiya, who will turn 20 on Saturday, hit seven home runs in 53 games last season.
  • Chunichi center fielder Yohei Oshima became the 76th NPB player with 200 career steals on Friday, when he stole his 13th of the year, in the fifth inning against the Hanshin Tigers. Oshima led the Central League in steals in 2012, and started the day with 12, one back of Yakult’s Tetsuto Yamada and Hanshin rookie Koji Chikamoto.

Active stolen base leaders (through 5/23/2019)

  1. Yoshio Itoi (Fighters, Buffaloes) 290 in 1,446 games
  2. Haruki Nishikawa (Fighters) 232 in 884 games
  3. Kensuke Tanaka (Fighters) 203 in 1,555 games
  4. Yohei Oshima (Dragons) 199 in 1,214 games
  5. Takashi Ogino (Marines) 172 in 642 games
Commentary, Paid Content

NPB games of May 23, 2019

Leave a comment

Central League

Giants 7, BayStars 4

At Tokyo Dome, DeNA rookie Shinichi Onuki (2-3) looked good getting out of a third-inning jam with a good inside fastball to two-time MVP Yoshihiro Maru, but the gave up six runs on seven hits in the fourth.

Four Giants pitchers allowed a run over the final 4-2/3 innings in relief of Nobutaka Imamura, who surrendered a three-run Neftali Soto homer in the fourth. With a two-run lead in the eighth former closer Hirokazu Sawamura had the tying runs in scoring position with one out but survived unscathed.

Soto, who led the CL in home runs last season, his first in NPB, moved out of a three-way tie for the league lead with his 14th. Seiya Suzuki of the Carp, and Hayato Sakamoto of the Giants each have 13.

Tigers 1, Swallows 0

At Koshien Stadium, Hanshin’s defense held off a sixth-inning threat to preserve a scoreless tie, before Kento Itohara ended the game with a one-out sayonara single in the bottom of the ninth.

With Yakult’s David Buchanan and Hanshin’s Haruto Takahashi locked up in a pitchers’ duel, the Tigers Jefry Marte gunned down a runner trying to score from third on a one-out grounder to first in the top of the sixth. Rookie center fielder Koji Chikamoto then ended the inning by going into Koshien’s spacious power alleys to haul in a fly off the bat of rookie Swallows slugger Munetaka Murakami.

The Swallows, who lost their eighth straight, wasted scoring opportunities in each of the last four innings. The Tigers, equally inept in getting the big hit, finally made a go of it against Scott McGough (2-1), who loaded the bases with one out on two walks and a single before Itohara ended it.

Tigers closer Rafael Dolis (2-1) earned the win after putting the Swallows leadoff hitter on in the ninth with his throwing error.

Pacific League

Fighters 11, Eagles 2

At Sapporo Dome, Sho Nakata broke a 1-1, third-inning tie with a two-run home run off Rakuten’s Wataru Karashima (3-2), while Nippon Ham’s Toshihiro Sugiura (2-0), making his third five-inning start of the season allowed his first run of the year.

Light-hitting utility infielder Kenshi Sugiya became 15th player in NPB history to hit home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game, and the first Fighter since former New York Yankee and current Miami Marlins scout Fernando Seguignol, who accomplished the feat a record nine times.

“From now on, you can call me Seguignol,” joked Sugiya, who now has 10 career home runs in 960 career at-bats.

Fernando Seguignol and Takaaki Ishibashi reliving their favorite scene from the movie “Major League” at QVC Marine Field.

In other news

  • On Wednesday, the DeNA BayStars’ Jose Lopez set an NPB record with 1,517 consecutive chances without making an error at first base, surpassing the mark of Hall of Famer Kihachi Enomoto, who had 1,516 from Aug. 13, 1967 to Sept. 3, 1968 for the PL’s Lotte Orions. “El Chamo” a 35-year-old from Venezuela is in his seventh NPB season, and has won the last three CL Golden Gloves at first base as well as another in 2013.
  • The SoftBank Hawks deactivated starting pitcher Nao Higashihama on Thursday due to stiffness in his hip after he allowed four runs in in his Tuesday start against the Seibu Lions in Okinawa. He will be assigned to the team’s rehab facility in Chikago, Fukuoka Prefecture.
  • Yakult Swallows infielder Keiji Obiki reached nine years of service time on Thursday, qualifying him to file for international free agency in November. Asked, as such players always are, his thoughts, Obiki pulled out pat answer No. 1: “The season has only started. I don’t have the luxury of such thoughts.”