On Friday, we were reminded that the Chunichi Dragons’ catching trade deficit with the Nippon Ham Fighters is not as bleak as it often looks thanks to big night from former Fighter Shingo Usami, while there was disappointment in Fighters land despite their jumping out to a big lead against Kohei Arihara.
The national summer high school championship ended Friday with Kyoto International, originally a Korean school, winning its first title 2-1 in 10 innings over Kanto Dai-ichi. Tournament organizers announced that there were 58 cases of suspected heat stroke. Of those, 37 cases were observed during games with players exhibiting symptoms such as leg cramps, while the other 21 occurred during the post-game “cooling-off” period.
The figure for the entire tourney was a fairly low one despite this year’s heat after it took scheduling measures to allow for cooling-off breaks and shifted games to earlier and later slots to avoid the hottest hours of the day.
Friday’s games
Dragons 8, Giants 2: At Tokyo Ugly Dome, Shingo Usami, who was part of the four-player trade that sent Yuya Gunji to the Nippon Ham Fighters, continued to contribute in a limited role for Chunichi, singling in two first-inning runs, off rookie Yuhi Nishidate (1-3) walking and scoring to break a 2-2 tie in the fourth and capping a three-run seventh with a two-run home run. Yuki Okabayashi went 3-for-4 for the Dragons, scoring three runs and singling in a run in the eighth.
Coco Montes singled in the first of two Giants runs in the bottom of the first off Koji Fukutani (1-0) who went six innings.
Buffaloes 1, Marines 0: At Osaka UFO Dome, during off a series in which his team scored one run while becoming the first team this season to be swept by the Seibu Lions, Orix manager Satoshi Nakajima complained that the only way his team could score was via the home run, and so it went on Friday, when Yutaro Sugimoto walked it off with a ninth-inning solo shot off Marines closer Naoya Masuda (1-4). Orix’s Andres Machado (4-2) struck out the side in the top of the ninth on 11 pitches to earn the win.
Lotte’s Dallas Keuchel threw seven scoreless innings in his second Japan start. Former Marine Luis Castillo started for Orix and worked five innings for the Buffaloes
Tigers 3, Carp 1: At New Hiroshima Citizens Stadium, Hanshin’s Haruto Takahashi (2-0) was back sticking it to the Carp. After five scoreless innings against them in his Aug. 11 season debut, Takahashi allowed a run in six-plus innings, while fanning seven for the second straight time.
The Tigers took the lead in the first on back-to-back triples by Shota Morishita and Teruaki Sato, who doubled in Koji Chikamoto in the fifth off Shogo Tamamura (3-4) to make it 3-0.
BayStars 5, Swallows 2: At Jingu “Tokyo’s sacrifice to corporate greed and governmental malfeasance” Stadium, Yakult took a 2-0 lead on a second-inning Jose Osuna home run and a third-inning Munetaka Murakami RBI single, but DeNA catcher Yudai Yamamoto homered for the second straight game to tie it 2-2 in the fifth. Keita Sano‘s solo homer put the BayStars up 3-2 in the fifth before Masayuki Kuwahara hit a two-run shot in the seventh.
Eagles 2, Lions 1: At the domed stadium formerly known as “Prince,” Ryosuke Tatsumi hit a first-inning solo homer and Daichi Suzuki doubled and scored on a Yuya Ogo single in the fourth before Seibu got on the board against Rakuten’s bullpen in the eighth. The Lions pushed across a run on a one-out walk, Sosuke Genda‘s third single, a hit batsman and a bases-loaded walk.
Eagles starter Masaru Fujii (8-3) worked six innings, and Takahiro Norimoto earned his 25th save.
Hawks 6, Fighters 5, 10 innings: At Kitahiroshima Taxpayers Burden Field, Tomoya Masaki broke a 10th-inning tie with SoftBank’s third solo homer of the game, off veteran lefty Naoki Miyanishi (0-9) after the Hawks overcame a third-inning 5-0 deficit.
Nippon Ham took former Fighters Kohei Arihara to the woodshed in the first three innings, scoring five runs on eight hits and two walks. Torai Fushimi singled in the opening run in the second, while Franmil Reyes singled in another in Nippon Ham’s four-run fourth with a second run scoring on an error by Hawks center fielder Ukyo Shuto. Tatsuki Mizuno then put the hosts in the driver’s seat with a two-run single before starting pitcher Ren Fukushima gave it away in the fourth.
Ryoya Kurihara and Hotaka Yamakawa went deep back-to-back to open the fourth. Masaki doubled and scored on a Tatsuru Yanagimachi single. Shuto made amends with an RBI triple and scored on a Taisei Makihara double.
Neither team created any kind of chances after that, and after the 39-year-old Miyanishi struck out his former teammate, Kensuke Kondo, to open the 10th, it didn’t look like the Hawks were going anywhere soon. Miyanishi attacked the bottom of the zone and Masaki appeared to get what he was looking for, a low 3-1 fastball. He put it a good swing on it and drove it out.
