It’s been a fun weekend so far. The Seibu Lions won back-to-back games, Yoshihiro Maru taking out his former team and its elite closer with a sayonara home run, and Ryosuke Kikuchi returning the favor the next day and spoiling a huge day from Yomiuri’s Foster Griffin. The DeNA BayStars and SoftBank Hawks have been running rampant on the road, with Carter Stewart Jr. having his best game as a pro, while the Marines and Buffaloes have been playing a pip of a series.
I was away from the internet and TV Friday, so excuse me for playing catchup.
Saturday’s games:
Carp 2, Giants 1: At Tokyo Ugly Dome, a day after Yoshihiro Maru beat Ryoji Kuribayashi (0-2) with a 10th-inning sayonara home run, it was Ryosuke Kikuchi’s turn on Sunday, taking Alberto Baldonado (1-3) deep in the ninth. Kuribayashi wasn’t much better than the day before but proved to be a lucky duck. He issued a leadoff walk — only for a botched bunt to see the leadoff man cut down – a single, and a smoking one-out liner caught at short for the second out before securing his 21st save.
Hiroshima’s Daichi Osera ran his scoreless-inning streak to 35-1/3 innings, while Yomiuri wasted an outstanding start from Foster Griffin, who allowed a run on two hits and a walk while striking out 12 over eight innings.
Swallows 6, Tigers 1: At Jingu “Tokyo’s sacrifice to corporate greed and governmental malfeasance” Stadium, Yasunobu Okugawa (2-0) was tearing up after allowing a run over five innings with a 5-1 lead, but this time repeated none of the waterworks that marked his comeback win from a severe shoulder sprain on June 14 against Orix. Munetaka Murakami hit his 15th home run and drove in two runs, while Domingo Santana also drove in two as Yakult snapped a four-game losing skid.
Dragons 5, BayStars 1: At Nagoya Dome, DeNA beat Chunichi by the same score for two nights in a row. Yudai Ono (1-2), who pitched well in his first game in a year in his April 3 season debut against the Giants, got absolutely hammered on April 20, giving up six runs in 1-1/3 innings, and didn’t do much better against DeNA on Saturday, allowing five runs in five innings.
Shugo Maki hit a two-run first-inning homer and homered to open the BayStars fourth to back Katsuki Azuma (7-0), who struck out seven over seven innings, and shut Chunichi down after giving up a first-inning run.
The Dragons, who played well against Hanshin this week thanks to contributions from former Tigers journeyman Yutaro Itayama, found two could play at that game Friday, when discarded Dragon Yota Kyoda went 3-for-4 with a homer and an RBI single behind seven innings from Andre Jackson (4-5), who struck out eight over seven innings and has thrown four straight quality starts.
Fighters 7, Hawks 1: At Kitahiroshima Taxpayers Burden Field, Kensuke Kondo, who left Nippon Ham before the Fighters moved into their new digs, homered in Friday’s 5-1 win behind Carter Stewart Jr. (3-2) and homered again on Saturday behind Ryosuke Otsu (6-3), while Hiromi Ito (6-2) allowed seven runs, four earned, in six innings.
Stewart on Friday allowed a run over seven innings, matching his career high, and struck out 13, surpassing the nine he fanned in his first career start, also against the Fighters but in Fukuoka, where he pitched five shutout innings in a scoreless nine-inning COVID tie. and homered again on Saturday
Lions 4, Eagles 2: At Miyagi Stadium, Chihiro Sumida (6-5) allowed two eighth-inning runs on a Yuya Ogo homer, and Alberto Abreu allowed a hit in a scoreless ninth for his 14th save. On Friday, Tatsuya Imai (4-4) scattered eight hits and two walks, twice surrendering leadoff doubles in a 4-0 win. The Lions are now unbeaten in four games with three wins and a tie. It tied their longest winning steak of the season.
Marines 5, Buffaloes 3, 10 innings: At Chiba Marine Stadium, Yutaro Sugimoto hit a two-run 10th-inning homer and Andres Machado worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his 11th save. Neftali Soto tied it 3-3 in the eighth with his eighth home run.
On Friday, the Marines exploited one bad inning from Anderson Espinoza (4-3) in a rain-shortened 4-3 win that featured a pair of RBI doubles by Orix’s resurgent Tomoya Mori.
