I came across the word “triaphillia” Saturday, which supposedly means a belief in the superstition that bad things occur in threes, something that might start afflicting the Hanshin Tigers and their fans after their most recent game with the Hiroshima Carp.
Also on Saturday, Matt Shoemaker got over an inauspicious start to his Japan career, thanks to Soichiro Tateoka hitting a ball where his infamous baserunning couldn’t get in the way, Brandon Laird and Yoshinobu Yamamoto each hit milestones, while the Nippon Ham Fighters scored a season-high five runs, but thanks to a solid day at the plate from new Eagle José Marmolejos, allowed a season-high eight.
Shall we get started?
Saturday’s games
Giants 3, Swallows 2: At Tokyo Dome, Yasutaka Shiomi hit Matt Shoemaker’s first pitch as a Yomiuri Giant into the stands – “I was looking fastball and timed it by counting ‘1, 2, 3′” – but settled down in a battle with another pitcher who modeled his delivery after Nolan Ryan, Swallows right-hander Yasuhiro “Nolan” Ogawa.
Shoemaker, who went 1-1 against Samurai Japan in the 2014 MLB-Japan all-star series, worked 6-2/3 innings, allowed two runs, one unearned due to a throwing error of his on a pickoff throw. He gave up five hits and three walks while striking out five.
The Swallows have used the absence of Domingo Santana to upgrade their outfield defense and that helped keep the Giants from scoring more than two off Ogawa in his six innings. A first-inning Naoki Yoshikawa leadoff single and a Hayato Sakamoto double set up the tying run, and Takumi Oshiro hit one where the Swallows outfielders couldn’t get it in the fourth.
Kengo Ota, starting in place of Norichika Aoki, singled with one out in the sixth, went to third on Shoemaker’s ill-fated pickoff throw, and scored on a Tetsuto Yamada double, but that was it for the Swallows’ offense.
The Giants ended it when Soichiro Tateoka batted in the 10th. Tateoka, who for a couple of years hardly went a week without some kind of a silly base running goof, ended the game against Yugo Umeno (2-1) in the same way it started, by hammering a high first-pitch fastball.
Rookie Giants closer Taisei Ota (1-0) got the win.
Carp 9, Tigers 1: At Koshien Stadium, Hiroshima starting pitcher Masato Morishita (2-0) allowed a run over the distance while doing his best to stave off the Central League’s adoption of the designated hitter. After a 3-for-4, three-RBI game in his season debut, he went 1-for-4 with a three-run triple and a sac fly.
His sacrifice fly drove in Hiroshima’s second run in their three-run second, while the pitcher cleared the bases in the second. He didn’t get to bat in the sixth when the Carp racked up their third three-run inning of the game.
The Tigers’ lone run came on Teruaki Sato‘s second home run of the season. Hanshin starter Takumi Akiyama (0-2) took the loss as the Tigers dropped to 1-11-1.
Triaphillia
Buffaloes 4, Marines 2: At Chiba Marine Stadium, Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3-0) had some dreadful command issues as he walked five and hit a batter while allowing nine hits, but surrendered just two runs over seven innings to set a franchise record for consecutive winning decisions at 18.
The right-hander managed just one 1-2-3 inning all day but got out of jams in the first, third and fourth with strikeouts. With lefty Kazuya Ojima (0-1) cruising, the lone run in the first on a Leonys Martin sac fly appeared like it had a chance to stand up.
But after allowing just three runners over the first four innings, the game unraveled after a poor throw allowed Ryo Ota to reach on a one-out error in the fifth as Kenya Wakatsuki singled and rail-thin 1.82-meter Kodai Sano hit his second homer of the season.
Yamamoto got himself into more trouble in the home half but was spared a run when Ota made a terrific relay throw from right field to nail Toshiya Sato trying to score from first on Martin’s one-out double into the gap.
Brandon Laird, in his eighth Japan season, hit his 200th home run to lead off the eighth. He began the season tied with José Celestino López at 198 for 18th among import hitters.
Jesse Biddle worked a scoreless eighth for the Buffaloes before closer Yoshihisa Hirano, who earned his third save, got in on the milestone party by becoming the 42nd pitcher to appear in 600 games in Japan.
Eagles 8, Fighters 5: Nippon Ham scored first against Hideaki Wakui (1-1) only for Ginjiro Sumitani to go deep in the second at Sapporo Dome, in kind of an indicator of how this thing was going to go.
Tsuyoshi Yamasaki had three hits. He doubled and scored the go-ahead run in the third on a Hideto Asamura single off Ryusei Kawano (0-2). A Hiroaki Shimauchi single and a one-out two-run José Marmolejos double, a wild pitch and a Ren Wada sac fly made it 5-1.
Daiki Asama doubled and scored on a Go Matsumoto single in the first, and again in the third to make it a 5-2 game. Chusei Mannami homered in the fifth to make it 5-3 before the Eagles put it out of reach in the seventh on a two-run Shimauchi triple and Marmolejos’ RBI single.
To their credit, the Fighters continued to grind, scoring on doubles by Renato Núñez and Kotaro Kiyomiya in the eighth, while Arismendy Alcantara singled and scored in the ninth.
Hawks 0, Lions 0: At Seibu Dome, SoftBank’s Nao Higashihama and rookie Seibu southpaw Chiichiro Sumida each went 6-2/3 innings while walking one each. There were no extra-base hits on either side and the bullpens matched the starters’ effectiveness.
Sunday’s starting pitchers
Got a fun one in Chiba tomorrow, when last year’s rookie of the year, Hiroya Miyagi will try and get his act together this year in a tough match-up with Roki “Rocket” Sasaki.
Fighters vs Eagles: Sapporo Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT
Naoyuki Uwasawa (0-2, 4.15) vs Ryota Takinaka (0-0, 0.00)
Lions vs Hawks: Seibu Dome 1 pm, 12 midnight EDT
Dietrich Enns (-) vs Tomohisa Ozeki (1-0, 1.42)
Marines vs Buffaloes: Chiba Marine Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT
Roki Sasaki (1-0, 2.57) vs Hiroya Miyagi (0-1, 4.91)
Giants vs Swallows: Tokyo Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT
Yuji Akahoshi (1-0, 2.08) vs Keiji Takahashi (1-0, 0.73)
Tigers vs Carp: Koshien Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT
Joe Gunkel (0-1, 9.00) vs Atsushi Endo (0-1, 2.70)
Active roster moves 4/9/2022
Deactivated players can be re-activated from 4/19
Central League
Activated
| Tigers | P | 17 | Yuta Iwasada |
| Tigers | OF | 9 | Shun Takayama |
| Tigers | OF | 53 | Kairi Shimada |
| Giants | P | 99 | Matt Shoemaker |
Dectivated
| Tigers | P | 98 | Taiki Ono |
| Tigers | C | 57 | Kenya Nagasaka |
| Tigers | OF | 97 | Dan Onodera |
| BayStars | P | 47 | Yoshiki Sunada |
| BayStars | OF | 37 | Taishi Kusumoto |
Pacific League
Activated
| Buffaloes | P | 59 | Cesar Vargas |
| Fighters | C | 27 | Yudai Furukawa |
Dectivated
| Buffaloes | P | 56 | Atsuya Kogita |
| Fighters | C | 10 | Yushi Shimizu |
