Jet lagged: Sept. 20, 2023

Tonight I’m counting my blessings and praising the Buffaloes.

Jet lag sucks

We’ve been back from vacation now for as long as we were on vacation, and for the first time in three days I was alert until nearly midnight. For the past two days, I intended to blog as games went on, when at the stroke of 8 pm, my head would become leaden.

Tonight it got me on the walk back home from the subway. The legs began feeling like rubber, and I literally had to remind myself to put one leg in front of the other in order to get home.

My first thought was that I’d become something like a zombie, but the zombies portrayed in the media all seem more vivacious than I feel at this moment.

The Buffaloes win the pennant

Orix clinched at home Wednesday with a 6-2 come-from-behind win over the Lotte Marines at Osaka UFO dome. Afterward, manager Satoshi Nakajima acknowledged that his pitchers were the team’s bedrock.

“They do outstanding work, but the position players make it come together in wins with their good fielding and hitting at big moments,” Nakajima said.

Yutaro Sugimoto had a big game for the Buffaloes, throwing out a runner on the bases from left field, singling in Orix’s first run and scoring the tying run.

After winning the pennant by two games or so in 2021 and finishing in a dead heat with SoftBank last year, the Buffaloes clinched by moving 14-1/2 games ahead of the second-place Marines.

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Back to baseball: Sept. 17, 2023

Because Teruyo and I were in Hawaii for a few days’ vacation enjoying the beautiful sunsets and sunrises, it’s been a while since the last blog post. Sorry for that.

A few hours after we arrived, Yoshinobu Yamamoto threw his second no-hitter in two seasons. On the day we returned, the Hanshin Tigers clinched the pennant. I thought Jet lag and fatigue have since run their course for the most part, and after a busy night at the office Saturday, I was ready to get down to the real work, talking about baseball, but really struggled to get this out Sunday night, needing a nap half-way through after I got home and a shower.

With one pennant race decided and the other virtually in the bank, all the focus now is on whether the two fourth-place teams, the Central League’s Yomiuri Giants and the Pacific League’s Rakuten Eagles can squeeze into the postseason.

Sunday offered no change to the playoff picture in either league as the three rivals for the two remaining PL playoff spots, the Eagles, Lotte Marines and SoftBank Hawks all lost, while the three CL contenders, the Hiroshima Carp, the DeNA BayStars and Yomiuri Giants, all won. Roki Sasaki pitched, but his outing was nothing to salivate over. Since Japan is celebrating its Respect for the Aged Day on Monday, Tsuyoshi Wada squared off against a pitcher half his age.

Sunday’s games

Giants 3, Swallows 2: At Tokyo Ugly Dome, Japan’s best home run-hitting team came from behind via the long ball on sixth-inning home runs from Yoshihiro Maru, his 17th, and Kazuma Okamoto, his Japan-leading 41st, off side-armer Reiji Kozawa, who’d allowed an infield single and two walks to that point.

Yakult took a 1-0 fourth-inning lead on Domingo Santana‘s 16th homer. Santana’s ninth-inning leadoff double off Taisei Ota (3-0) set up the tying run before Yuki Okada singled to open the Giants ninth off Noboru Shimizu (1-8), and scored after Makoto Kadowaki fouled off five two-strike pitches with two outs before lining a pitch past second.

Continue reading Back to baseball: Sept. 17, 2023

writing & research on Japanese baseball

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