It was a good day for starting pitchers named Hiroto on Tuesday, while Livan Moinelo continued to impress for SoftBank, and the Marines showed they could score every which way.
On another note, I had Sunday’s games almost ready to roll, but was so gassed from a late night at the office because of the Olympics that I didn’t have the energy to hit the “publish” button late that night. My apologies for that since Hiromi Ito threw a Maddux and Tomoyuki Sugano and had his first shutout in three years.
Tuesday’s games
Carp 6, BayStars 3: At New Hiroshima Citizens Stadium, a dropped foul fly separated Shogo Tamamura (2-3) from his first career shutout. The dropped fly gave Shugo Maki another life with two on and two out, and he belted his 16th home run on Tamamura’s 128th pitch. The lefty went 2-2 on Toshiro Miyazaki before getting a groundout, allowing him to settle for his first complete-game victory.
Masaya Yano tripled and scored in the second, singled in two runs in the Carp’s four-run third, and singled in a run in the fifth.
Hawks 10, Eagles 1: At Miyagi Stadium, Livan Moinelo (7-3) allowed a run on one hit and one hit batsman over seven innings while striking out five. He took the mound in the first with a three-run lead thanks to Hotaka Yamakawa‘s three-run homer, his 17th, off Takahisa Hayakawa (7-4).
Ryoya Kurihara hit a two-run homer in the seventh, and Yamakawa hit another in the eighth with a man on.
Dragons 6, Swallows 0: At Nagoya Dome, Hiroto Takahashi (8-1) struck out nine and walked two while allowing three hits over seven innings. Hiroki Fukunaga went 4-for-5 with an RBI double, while Yuki Okabayashi was 3-for-3 with a walk and two doubles. Yakult’s Miguel Yajure (5-8) allowed four runs over 4-1/3 innings, and still managed to strand five runners through the first four.
Tigers 5, Giants 1: At Koshien Stadium, Hiroto Saiki (9-3) allowed an unearned run over 6-1/3 innings. Yusuke Oyama singled and scored on an Ukyo Maegawa fifth-inning double off Iori Yamasaki (7-3), who got a free out when Maegawa was out trying for third, and got out of the inning with the bases loaded while not allowing another run. That had to wait until Shota Morishita and Teruaki Sato singled to open the sixth and scored on Oyama’s ninth home run.
Marines 7, Lions 6: At Chiba Marine Stadium, it was big guns against pop guns. Gregory Polanco capped a three-run Marines first with a two-run homer, his 13th, off Lions starter Chihiro Sumida, although Lotte proved they could do it small-ball style with a stolen base, and a game-winning bunt single.
Seibu tied it on three hits and a hit batsman in the second against Kazuya Ojima and took a 5-3 lead with single runs in the seventh and eighth. Takuya Hiruma tripled in the go-ahead run in the seventh and Anthony Garcia, making his Japan debut, doubled in a run in the eighth. Neftali Soto helped restored Lotte’s lead in the eighth, with his 13th home run, a solo shot off Bo Takahashi kick starting a three-run rally. Seibu tied it in the ninth when Sosuke Genda singled for the third time and scored his second run on a Takayoshi Yamamura single.
With one out in the ninth, Soto singled off Albert Abreu, pinch-runner Koshiro Wada stole second, and Seibu filled first with an intentional walk after Toshiya Sato got ahead in the count. A two-out unintentional walk to Akito Takabe, who was 3-for-4 with a double, loaded them up for Ryusei Sato who bunted the winning run home from third with two outs.
Fighters 3, Buffaloes 3, 12 innings: At Kitahiroshima Taxpayers Burden Field, Anderson Espinoza held the Fighters to a run over six innings, and left with a 2-1 lead. Ariel Martinez brought Nippon Ham from a run down with a two-run seventh-inning pinch-hit homer to plate Go Matsumoto, who had singled in a tying run in the fourth and singled to open the seventh off former Fighters Kazutomo Iguchi. Orix tied it in the eighth on doubles by Tomoya Noguchi and Keita Nakagawa. The Fighters loaded the bases in the 10th with one out, but Franmil Reyes hit into an inning-ending double play, stranded two runners in the 11th, and two more in the 12th.
