NPB 2020 6-21 live

Go to today’s LIVE BLOG.

Giants sweep Tigers

Angel Sanchez, who went 17-5 last year in KBO for the SK Wyverns, had a rocky start in his NPB debut Sunday, but earned the win as Kazuma Okamoto and Gerardo Parra homered to lift the Yomiuri Giants to a 7-1 win over the Hanshin Tigers and a three-game series sweep at Tokyo Dome for the defending CL champs.

Sanchez allowed one run, on a leadoff homer to Koji Chikamoto, allowed four walks and four hits, but lasted 5-2/3 innings.

Morishita shines in pro debut for Carp

Masato Morishita, Hiroshima’s top draft pick out of Meiji University, struck out eight in his pro debut against the DeNA BayStars. The righty, who I had a look at in the spring, walked two and gave up four hits in a 104-pitch, seven-inning outing at Yokohama Stadium.

Unfortunately, there was no fairy tale finish in Morishita’s debut as four-straight BayStars batters hit line drives off Tyler Scott in the ninth. Toshiro Miyazaki finishes it off by finding the gap against the drawn-in outfield and two runs scored to end it.

“I believe that our strategy was good but that guy was real good. He has the potential to be an ace pitcher. I was glad they took him out of the game,” DeNA skipper Alex Ramirez said.

BayStars right-hander Kentaro Taira allowed a run over six innings on a walk and five hits, while striking out two.

“It was a great game all the way from the beginning. Taira did a great job from the beginning and the relievers did a great job.”

Yuki Kuniyoshi worked two scoreless innings of relief, and Spencer Patton, who worked the eighth, got the win.

Lions rookie Yoza solid in losing debut

Kaito Yoza allowed three runs over six innings in his first-team for the Seibu Lions, but the bullpen blew up over the final three innings in a 12-2 loss to the Nippon Ham Fighters. Solo homers from Sho Nakata and Taishi Ota gave the visitors an early lead they would never give up.

Mima wins Marines debut

Manabu Mima, who joined Lotte over the winter as a free agent from the Rakuten Eagles, allowed a run while striking out nine in just five innings in the Marines’ 5-1 victory over the SoftBank Hawks.

Seiya Inoue homered in the second off reliever Yuki Tsumori after the Hawks starter, journeyman Akira Niho loaded the bases by hitting Shogo Nakamura in the head. Pitches that strike a batter in or around the head are referred to as “kikenkyu” (dangerous pitches) and call for an automatic ejection for the pitcher.

Former major leaguers Brandon Laird and Leonys Martin reached base before Nakamura was hit and scored as Inoue put the game out of reach early.

June 21 Live blog: Buffaloes vs Eagles

Off to a bit of a slow start on Sunday, folks. Having a look at Orix and Rakuten today, because my favorite Japanese pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto is on the mound for the Buffaloes.

Go to NEWEST.

For those of you who are curious, you can read a little about these teams in my Japanese pro baseball guide.

Top 2nd

Yamamoto has consistently the best stuff in Japan, and it looks like he’s put some muscle on his once spindly frame. He struck out the side in order in the first and got a one-run lead in the home half, but two ground balls in the second produced the Eagles’ first hit.

  1. Dangerous Hideto Asamura grounds out softly to 2nd.
  2. Hiroaki Shimauchi gets a grounder through between 1st and 2nd
  3. Former Buffaloe Stefen Romero grounds to short and the enigmatic Ryoichi Adachi starts the inning-ending double play.

Bottom 2nd

Eagles starter Ryota Ishibashi went 8-7 as a rookie last year and was second on the team in innings pitched with 127-1/3 because the club’s two best starters, Takayuki Kishi and Takahiro Norimoto missed time with injuries

Ishibashi’s average fastball velocity last year was 145.2 kph, and he’s a four-seam, cutter, splitter, and two-seam guy, although be aware the two-seam description generally encompasses two distinctly different pitches, a hard running fastball and a two-seam sinking fastball–which is the rarer of the two in Japan.

  1. Kenya Wakatsuki grounds out.
  2. Ryoichi Adachi singles to center.
  3. Shunta Goto singles to right to put runners on the corners for Takahiro Okada.
  4. Okada, who slid home headfirst to score on Keita Nakagawa’s sac fly in the first, singles in the Buffaloes’ second run.
  5. Aderlin Rodriguez looks like a player built for Japan, a smooth compact swing, who makes excellent contact. Ishibashi hangs a forkball and Rodriguez hits it high up the wall in left for an RBI double, Buffaloes 3, Eagles 0.
  6. Rodriguez, however, contributes an out on the bases, thanks to some slick defense by Eagles first baseman Ginji Akaminai. Ginji goes to a knee to stab a ball off the bat of Masataka Yoshida, makes the play at first and then throws behind Rodriguez who is trapped between second and third.

Top 3rd

  1. Akaminai, who wears “Ginji” on his uniform as his registered name, grounds out to second, topping 1-2 splitter.
  2. Catcher Hikaru hits a little comebacker to Yamamoto for the second out.
  3. Ryosuke Tatsumi, the PL’s 2018 rookie of the year swings and misses at a low fastball for another 1-2-3 inning. The thing about Yamamoto is that he has so many quality pitches, that it’s very common to see everyone guessing wrong and getting terrible swings even at mistakes in the zone.

Bottom 3rd

  1. Adam Jones had two hits on Saturday, and put a sweet swing on a straight fastball in the first for a single that contributed to Orix’s first run. Ishibashi gets a generous call on a low pitch from home plate ump Masanobu Suginaga, and Jones goes down looking.
  2. Keita Nakagawa, who had a strong rookie season playing all over the musical chairs game the Buffaloes’ infield resembled last year, flies out to left.
  3. Koji Oshiro, another of those versatile infielders from 2019, grounds out to short.

Top 4th

  1. Eigoro Mogi gets under a high 151-kph fastball and flies out to left.
  2. Daichi Suzuki, the former Marines captain who moved to Sendai as a free agent over the winter, swings under a high 1-2 running fastball to go down swinging.
  3. Jabari Blash, who struck out looking in the first, flails at a beauty of an 0-2 curve.

Bottom 4th

  1. Buffaloes catcher Kenya Wakatsuki launches a hanging first-pitch slider away to the warning track for an opposite-field leadoff double.
  2. Adachi tops an attempted sacrifice bunt in front of the plate, and Ota throws out his opposite number at third.
  3. Akaminai, playing in tight at first base, makes a good play on a little chopper by Goto.
  4. Okada, who raked in the spring and in practice games, pulled a high hanging forkball over Akaminai and down the right-field line for his second double of the game and a 4-0 Buffaloes lead. This is quite a turnaround for Okada, whose career has been in decline for nearly a decade, and who spent most of the 2019 season on the farm after a handful of sloppy at-bats and fielding misplays at first base.
  5. Ishibashi snaps off a nasty curve to send Rodriguez down swinging.

Top 5th

  1. Not a great fastball, but Asamura doesn’t get a great swing on it and pops up down the left field line.
  2. An easy fly to lefty by Shimauchi and Yamamoto appears to be operating on cruise control.
  3. He works carefully to Romero, who ends a good 6-pitch at-bat by fouling out.

Bottom 5th

Rookie right-hander Taisei Tsurusaki on the mound for the Eagles after Ishibashi gives up four runs in four innings. Tsurusaki is making his debut against the middle of the Buffaloes lineup. He looks to have a repeatable delivery, comes over the top and keeps his hand on top of the ball.

  1. Yoshida, one of the best hitters in the PL, swings at a huge 12-6 curve before taking a cutter on the outside corner for Strike 3.
  2. Jones provides less of a challenge, grounding a first-pitch fastball away to second.
  3. Nakagawa walks on seven pitches and steals second easily.
  4. Oshiro walks on 6 pitches.
  5. Wakatsuki flies out off the handle, and the rookie survives without any damage done.

Top 6th

  1. Nice at-bat by Ginji, but he tips a 2-2 shoot into Wakatsuki’s glove for Strike 3.
  2. Backup catcher Ayatsugu Yamashita batting for his catching partner Ota and grounds out easily to first.
  3. Yamamoto is toying with Tatsumi, going after the corners with his hard stuff while getting three strikes with his curve. Tatsumi goes down swinging at one low out of the zone.
Thanks for that Jason. A Yamamoto curve is not fair to pinch-hitters.

Bottom 6th

Veteran lefty Wataru Karashima on the mound for the Eagles. He had a serviceable year in the rotation last season, going 9-6 in 117-1/3 innings. He is in middle relief this year with closer Yuki Matsui moving back into the rotation. He’s basically a fastball, slider, curve change guy.

  1. I love watching Ginji Akaminai play first base. He is everywhere on everything, and knows where to look and when to throw. Another good play opens the first as he throws out Adachi to open the seventh.
  2. Goto flies out to left.
  3. Okada’s confidence is dialed up to “11” now after floundering for several seasons. He is balanced at the plate and ready to attack EVERYTHING. He walks to bring up Rodriguez.
  4. And Rodriguez, short to the ball on an inside pitch and pulls it down the line in left for a double. Okada to third.
  5. Okada, a small guy with a quiet stance in the left-handed batters box, doesn’t look like he should be dangerous, but he has serious power and plate discipline. Not this time though, as Karashima gets him to ground to short.

Top 7th

Don’t remember when the PL started the innovation of playing the visiting team’s Lucky Seventh song on the stadium speakers, but it is a nice touch, since no matter what park you’re at in the top flight there will be at least five or six hundred fans on the visitor’s side of the outfield waving their flags and cheering on their guys.

With no fans in the stands, the Kyocera Dome scoreboard was showing Eagles fans cheering from home on streaming video while, the Eagles song, what Casey McGehee called the “Igloo song,” plays.

  1. Mogi grounds out to open the visitors’ seventh.
  2. Suzuki misses a 3-2 inside fastball for Yamamoto’s 10th strikeout.
  3. Blash grounds one up the middle for an infield single.
  4. Asamura miss-hits a cutter to short for an easy out.

Bottom 7th

Tomohiro Anraku, who made a name for himself in high school with his brutal pitch counts, comes in to pitch the seventh for the Eagles.

  1. Jones looks at two fastballs low and away before grounding out to second.
  2. Nakagawa lined a pitch to short right center, and nearly got caught out thinking it would get through when Tatsumi cut it off in center.
  3. Pinch runner for Nakagawa at first, and Yuya Oda swipes second. Oshiro flies out to center but not deep enough to send Oda to third.
  4. Wakatsuki grounds out and we’re going to the 8th with the Eagles trailing 4-0.

Top 8th

  1. Shimauchi flies out to first on the second pitch.
  2. Romero flies out to second on the second pitch.
  3. Yasuhito Uchida, batting for Ginji, who may have twisted something when he miss-stepped making that play to open the seventh, rips a single to right.
  4. Yamashita his what they call a “bonda” in Japanese, an easy out, on a grounder to second.

That’s 94 pitches for Yamamoto and with a four-run lead, he won’t be back. Thirty years ago, I guarantee, he’d be getting ready for the ninth. Back then, there was no good excuse for lifting a starter who was leading. “How can you take him out? It’s a close game” or “How can you take him out with that big lead.” You name it, there was an excuse for it.

Bottom 8th

Anraku, the Eagles’ top draft pick in 2014, is back for the ninth.

  1. Adachi lines out.
  2. Goto fouls off two, two-strike pitches before striking out swinging in an eight-pitch at-bat.
  3. Anraku finally makes Okada look like the guy who could possibly be lost at the plate as he hesitates on a 1-2 fastball on the inside corner for Strike 3.

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Top 9th

United States international closer Brandon Dickson on in the ninth. He was a productive starter for the Buffaloes for six seasons, but last year, with no one else to turn to, he was thrust into the closer’s role, where he’s been dynamite. He finished 2019 as the closer for Team USA in the Premier 12.

  1. Pinch-hitter Kazuya Fujita flies out to left.
  2. Mogi grounds out to second.
  3. Suzuki fouls off a tough two-strike fastball on the outside corner. Takes a ball low for 2-2, and puts a good swing on a fastball but lines it straight to Goto in center for the Buffs’ first win of the season.

Final score: Buffaloes 4, Eagles 0

NPB 2020 6-20 live

Before the nitty gritty about today’s live blog, here are some other NPB quick hits.

Baby shark warning

367 days after he introduced the Baby Shark to Washington Nationals fans, Gerardo Parra hit his first regular season home run in Japan in the Yomiuri Giants’ 11-1 win over the Hanshin Tigers. We don’t know what the Giants players were doing during their layoff but they apparently had been doing their baby shark homework assignments.

Yamada 28, 29 and counting

Tetsuto Yamada is going to have to hustle to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases in a 120-game season, but he’s off to a good start. He hit his second home run on Saturday and grabbed his first stolen base in Yakult’s 6-2 win over the Chunichi Dragons.

The Swallows second baseman is the only player in NPB history with more than one season with a .300-plus average, and 30 or more steals and home runs. This accomplishment of .3, 30, 30 is mangled in Japanese as the “Triple Three.” Yamada has done it three times.

Kyodo News’ coverage of Saturday’s games.

Suzuki goes deep twice

Although scouts have been salivating over the possibility of Yamada playing in the majors, more of them seem certain that the other guy with two homers this year, Seiya Suzuki of the Hiroshima Carp will go.

Here’s my profile of the Carp outfielder

Suzuki homered twice on Saturday in a 10-5 win over the DeNA BayStars. Veteran minor league pitcher Michael Peoples allowed one run over six innings and striking out seven for the BayStars.

Wada strong, but Hawks lose

Former Chicago Cub Tsuyoshi Wada struck out seven, while allowing a run over 6-1/3 innings–on a leadoff homer by former Yankee Brandon Laird in the second–in the Hawks’ 3-2 loss to the Lotte Marines. Former Cleveland Indians reliever Frank Herrmann picked up the in relief.

The balls are jumping, but

Home runs have not been more frequent this year than they were over the same period last year. Last year, there were 29 hit out over 215 innings. Although two pitchers homered on Friday, there have been 21 over 216 2/3 innings the first two days of the 2020 season.

Lions Fighters live blog June 20, 2020

Switching to the Pacific League today and the Lions-Fighters game from empty MetLife Dome.Top of 1st

Wataru Matsumoto on the mound for the Lions. According to Delta Graphs, he gave up 29. 1 percent hard contact last year, 2nd best among Lions pitchers with 50-plus innings, but had the fourth-worst DER behind him (.692). Flyball pitcher primarily fastball, cutter, split last year.

Top 1st

  1. Haruki Nishikawa strikes out on a steady diet of fastballs to open the game.
  2. Taishi Ota singles, hits a cutter away off the end of the bat.
  3. Kensuke Kondo strikes out swinging at a 3-3 fastball, Ota caught stealing for the DP.

Bottom 1st

Fighters starter Takayuki Kato played an important role as a rookie in 2016, when the Fighters starting rotation was without Shohei Ohtani for much of the summer. Kato, the second pick the previous autumn, went 7-3 as the Fighters won the PL pennant and the Japan Series.

He’s a lefty with a low-velocity(137 kph avg) fastball and has thrown about every pitch in the book

  1. Corey Spangenberg strikes out on five pitches, slider, slider, splitter, fastball and splitter out of the zone.
  2. Sosuke Genda, LHB, strikes out swinging at a high 1-2 fastball away after being set up with a slider and a curve out of the zone.
  3. Tomoya Mori, last year’s PL MVP, lays off three two-strike pitches away and singles off a 3-3 fastball.
  4. Hotaka Yamakawa, the 2018 MVP and two-time defending PL home run champ flies out on a 1-0 fastball away.

Top 2nd

  1. Sho Nakata, the biggest power threat in the Fighters lineup since the departure of Ohtani (Angels) and Brandon Laird (Lotte Marines) refused to chase three out of the zone but flies out on a low 145-kph fastball. Matsumoto is throwing harder today than he did for most of his 2019 rookie season.
  2. Wang Po-Jung flies out on a first-pitch curve in the zone.
  3. Ryo Watanabe, one of the big surprises for the Fighters last year, again declines to chase three pitches out of the zone but grounds a 3-1 fastball to short.

Bottom 2nd

  1. Shuta Tonosaki swings at the first two strikes he sees and knocks the second, a 1-1 fastball over the fence in left center.
  2. Takeya Nakamura takes two inside fastballs for strikes before missing a splitter out of the zone
  3. Takumi Kuriyama, who is along with Giants outfielder Yoshiyuki Kamei, one of the favorite veteran grinders of the Japan Baseball Weekly Podcast. He fouls off a pair of two-strike pitches before singling on the eighth pitch.
  4. The plate discipline theme is in mid-season form as Lions No. 8 hitter Fumikazu Kimura walks on six pitches.
  5. Yuji Kaneko hits a potential double play grounder to second, but Watanabe fumbles it and they can only get the force.
  6. With two out and runners on the corners, Spangenberg grounds a first-pitch fastball to second.

Top 3rd

  1. Kazunari Ishii flies out on a curve. Seeing quite a few from Matsumoto today.
  2. Yuki Nomura, who was born in the States, and made his top-flight debut on Friday and went 0-for-2, walks.
  3. Catcher Yushi Shimizu grounds into a double play, something the Lions were pretty good at on defense last year.

Bottom 3rd

  1. Genda flies out on five pitches.
  2. Mori flies out to center
  3. Yamakawa singles on a 3-2 splitter that Kato leaves up and over the plate.
  4. Sotozaki walks on five pitches.
  5. Nakamura strikes out, again, on a split out of the zone, again.

Top 4th

  1. Nishikawa opens with a single when Matsumoto misses up and in with a fastball.
  2. Matsumoto strikes out Ota with a big beautiful curve that drops out of the zone.
  3. Kensuke Kondo, who walks as much as anyone in Japan, took four and is on first base, inviting a mound meeting.
  4. It didn’t produce the desired results. Nakata goes with a straight 1-0 fastball away and drives it off the top of the wall in right for a two-run double. Fighters 2, Lions 1. This ends 12 scoreless innings by the Fighters to open the season.
  5. Wang strikes out swinging at a splitter that had virtually no spin on it. If they weren’t prevented from licking the ball, I’d be suspicious of that one.
  6. Watanabe walks and the Lions bench is restless.
  7. But Matsumoto escapes further damage against Watanabe, who can’t handle a pair of high-inside fastballs and pops out.

Bottom 4th

  1. Kuriyama leads it off for the Lions with a walk. It’s not really a surprise that guys are having trouble locating. They typically enter the season after nearly two months of bullpens and preseason games. This year they started with that, then stopped, and went back to work at the end of May.
  2. Kimura gets jammed on a fastball and flies out.
  3. Kaneko pokes a fastball away into right and there’s two on.
  4. Spangenberg up. Kato throws low 3/4 and when he throws his splitter away to lefties, it looks a lot like the slider, but Spangenberg is able to foul those off. He has no answer for the slider away though, and goes down swinging.

Top 5th

  1. Nomura pops out to first on the first pitch.
  2. Shimizu pops out to short as Matsumoto is using the fastball-cutter combination to miss barrels.
  3. Nishikawa completes the game of “Three Flies out” by popping out to second on a high fastball.

Bottom 6th

New pitcher for Nippon Ham. 28-year-old right-hander Shota Tamai, who pitched in 65 games last season. Fastball, two-seamer, cutter, curve. Has had his best results with a shoot (essentially a reverse cutter) and the cutter last year.

  1. Mori strikes out looking at 2-2 fastball that nails the bottom of the zone.
  2. After four outside pitches to the right-handed-hitting Yamakawa, Tamai gets him on an inside fastball.
  3. A 2-1 fastball runs in on Tonosaki and he also grounds it to third, where the 19-year-old Nomura makes a nice grab and throws on the run.

Top 6th

  1. Matsumoto, among the league leaders in infield fly percentage last year, gets his fifth straight to open the sixth as Ota flies out to first.
  2. Kondo, who drew 103 walks last year, draws his third of the year.
  3. Nakata flies out to left.
  4. Wang grounds to first.

Bottom 6th

  1. Nakamura avoids striking out for the third time by popping up a 143-kph first-pitch fastball from Tamai to second.
  2. Kuriyama singles singles to right.
  3. Kimura watches three running fastballs before flying out on a cutter.
  4. Kaneko flies out to left to end an easy inning for Tamai.

Top 7th

  1. Watanabe draws a 6-pitch leadoff walk on Matsumoto’s 90th pitch.
  2. Ishii smashes a grounder to first after costing himself two strikes trying to bunt.
  3. That’s all for Matsumoto. Stocky, hard-throwing righty Kaima Taira comes in to face Nomura, who hits a low fastball on the screws but straight to Tonosaki at second.
  4. No. 9 hitter Shimizu strikes out looking at slider.

Bottom 7th

Time for the Lions “Lucky 7th.” With no fans in the park, the scoreboard is showing fans on a streaming app singing the Lions’ team song, while the mascots and cheer leaders perform.

Lefty Katsuhiko Kumon up for the Fighters, with Spangenberg probably happy not to see anymore of Kato’s sliders leading off.

  1. Unfortunately, the new import doesn’t have any more luck with Kumon’s slider than he did Kato’s, and goes down swinging for the third time, low and away.
  2. Genda walks to put the tying run on base.
  3. Mori flies out to center after Genda steals second.
  4. Yamakawa up, but the lefty gets him to hit the first pitch to Nomura at third. Inning over.
And Hotaka Yamakawa cleans up on the piano as well.

Top 8th

Trailing by a run, the Lions bring in Tetsu Miyagawa to make his pro debut. The 24-year-old righty was the Lions’ top draft pick last autumn out of corporate league club Toshiba.

  1. Nishikawa flies out on a 2-1 fastball.
  2. Ota, who was a No. 1 draft pick in his previous existence as the Yomiuri Giants “Next Hideki Matsui” fans on some nasty sliders.
  3. Kono gets ahead in the count before smashing a ball off the rookie pitcher’s glove for an infield single — fun fact: pitchers in Japan get no assist when the ball comes off their glove or body on a ground out.
  4. Miyagawa is trying to paint corners, and walks Nakata on five pitches.
  5. More avoidance of the strike zone brings pitching coach Fumiya Nishiguchi to the mound as Wang walks and the bases are loaded with two outs for Watanabe.
  6. Watanabe hits a shot back to Miyagawa, who knocks it down and ends the inning.

Bottom 8th

Naoki Miayanishi, the Fighters veteran lefty middle reliever is on.

  1. Sotozaki strikes out swinging at a high backdoor slider from Miyanishi.
  2. Nakamura also strikes out on a pitch away after Miyanishi plays cat and mouse with umpire Kazuhiro Kobayashi, who isn’t inclined to cut the lefty any slack on that side till a 3-1 fastball misses completely and Miyanishi gets one on credit. Nakamura then swings at Miyanishi’s 3-2 pitch just as far out of the zone away and misses.
  3. Kuriyama strokes a single to right but is called out trying to steal. Shimizu bounces the throw, but Kuriyama’s wheels aren’t what they were 11 years ago, when he last stole 10 bases in a season, and he’s out after a video request.

Top 9th

Second-year right-hander Ryosuke Moriwaki up for Seibu.

  1. Ishii lines out to first.
  2. Nomura flies out center.
  3. Shimizu doubles to the warning track in left.
  4. Nishikawa up with a chance to purchase some insurance with a base hit but walks on seven pitches. Two on for Ota.
  5. Moriwaki balks on a 0-2 pitch to Ota, both runners advance. He’s called for not pausing three seconds. Ota grounds to third and is ruled safe at first as Shimizu crosses the plate. The call is overturned on appeal and we go to the bottom of the ninth with the Fighters leading 2-1.

At least until 2019, NPB owners were too cheap to give the umpires real TV monitors to view the replays, forcing them to use these 8″ portable monitors, which resulted in the fans in the stands getting a better view of the play than the umps under the stands did.

Bottom 9th

Right-handed side-armer Ryo Akiyoshi, acquired from Yakult after the only poor season of his career in 2018, became the Fighters’ closer ikn 2019 and saved 25 games. He’s on now looking for Save No. 1.

  1. Kimura flies out on a 2-2 slider away to open the inning.
  2. Kaneko battles and battles and battles before watching a backdoor slider cross the plate for Strike 3.
  3. And for the first time in the game, Spangenberg gets to face a right-hander, but strikes (again) although this one was in the dirt.

Final score: Fighters 2, Lions 1

Haruki Ishikawa, whose hit was the 1,000th of his career is sporting his “1,000 hits” T-shirt for his post-game hero interview.

writing & research on Japanese baseball

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