On Thursday in Japan, Tomoyuki Sugano and the curse of the shallow outfield both struck again, while Leandro Cedeno appears to be getting into a groove for the Orix Buffaloes.
Hanshin’s Kaito Shimomura, the joint overall fifth pick in last year’s NPB draft has had Tommy John elbow ligament reconstruction surgery, the team announced Thursday. He’s the second first-round signing from that draft to have Tommy John, after Chunichi’s Sho Kusaka.
Joining them on the cutting edge of modern baseball was lefty Yamato Shiroki, the Giants’ sixth pick in 2021, whom Yomiuri announced had surgery recently.
Thursday’s games
Carp 1, Tigers 0: At Koshien Stadium, Hanshin surrendered the game’s only run when a two-out routine fly to deep center got over the drawn-in outfield for an RBI triple. Yuki Nishi worked eight scoreless innings for the Tigers, and the Nikkan Sports happily blamed reliever Javy Gellar for allowing a runner to get to second with two outs that FORCED Tigers manager Akinobu Okada to shoot himself in the foot.
In case you’re curious how less often Japanese teams record outs when there’s a runner on second, see my research article “Shallow Thoughts.”
Giants 5, Swallows 0: At Jingu “Tokyo’s Sacrifice to Corporate Greed and Governmental Malfeasance” Stadium, Sugano (2-0) continued to be breathtakingly accurate with his command to outpitch Keiji Takahashi (0-1), who allowed his first earned run of the season as he failed to bulldog his way through his sixth and final inning.
Buffaloes 2, Eagles 1: At Kyocera UFO Dome, Leandro Cedeno’s fourth homer, and his third in two days tied it 1-1, and Yutaro Sugimoto reached in the ninth, for the fourth time, and got a tremendous jump to score on Kotaro Kurebayashi‘s walk-off double. Shumpeita Yamashita struck out six and walked two over five innings, while Rakuten’s Seiryu Uchi made his second career start and delivered his second quality start.
Hawks 6, Fighters 3: At Fukuoka Dome, Kenta Imamiya reached base three times and singled in the tie-breaking run in the seventh inning. Hotaka Yamakawa doubled in a first-inning run, walked and singled in two more in the seventh.
