On Wednesday, we learned that Samurai Japan will warm up for November’s Premier12 with two games against the darlings of the 2023 WBC Pool B round, the Czech Republic, while on the field the Carp played a little kids game against the Orix Buffaloes, and Seibu got a win for the Lions’ GM.
Wednesday’s games:
Lions 1, Dragons 0: At Nagoya Dome, Chihiro Sumida (3-4) struck out six without a walk, while allowing four hits over eight innings as Seibu won its first game under GM Hisanobu Watanabe, whose tenure as interim manager began Tuesday.
Takuya Hiruma‘s sixth-inning RBI infield single snapped Chunichi’s run of scoreless defensive innings at 32, as the Lions took a 1-0 lead against Shinnosuke Ogasawara (2-4). Albert Abreu allowed two runners in the ninth but started an inning-ending double play to secure his 10th save.
Eagles 4, BayStars 0: At Yokohama Stadium, Rakuten’s Ryusei Uchi (2-4) allowed three singles and a walk but also got three double plays over five innings, , and the Eagles’ bullpen retired 12 of the last 13 batters.
Hikaru Ota’s two-out solo homer off Andre Jackson (2-4) opened the scoring in the fifth for the Eagles. Yuya Ogo led off Rakuten’s two-run sixth with a single, and Ryosuke Tatsumi was hit by a pitch, each stole a base with the runs scoring on a Hideto Asamura sac fly and Yoshiaki Watanabe‘s single. Ota doubled in the seventh and made it 4-0 on an Ogo triple.
Carp 14, Buffaloes 0: At New Hiroshima Citizens Stadium, this game looked like one of those events where they let kids circled the bases after the game, because every time you looked up there was another Hiroshima runner being congratulated as he crossed the plate.
Shota Morishita (4-2), a career .194 hitter, singled twice, scored twice and drove in a run while throwing seven sharp innings.
Shogo Akiyama singled to open Hiroshima’s first against Daiki Tajima (2-2), Masaya Yano bunted his way on, and a run came home via a sacrifice and a groundout. Morishita singled to open the Carp’s third, took second on a groundout and scored on Yano’s fly ball to the gap past the drawn-in outfield for a triple. Yano trotted home when Tajima’s next pitch was as uncatchable as they get. Kaito Kozono singled with two outs and scored on Shota Suekane‘s home run that made 5-0.
New import Taylor Hearn made his debut in relief of Morishita. The lefty struck out two of the three batters he faced.
Fighters 8, Tigers 2: At Koshien Stadium, Nippon Ham took advantage of an early mistake, and never let up behind Hiromi Ito (4-0), who allowed two runs over five innings.
A Go Matsumoto single and a Yua Tamiya double off Kotaro Otake (4-3) brought the infield in, and both runners scored on shortstop Seiya Kinami‘s errant throw to the plate. Hanshin left the bases loaded in the third before three singles from Ukyo Maegawa, Kinami and Otake halved the Fighters’ lead. Chusei Mannami, however, made it 4-1 in the top of the fifth with a two-run homer, his sixth.
A Takumu Nakano walk, a Shota Morishita single and an error on first baseman Ariel Martinez set the table for former Fighter Ryo Watanabe‘s sacrifice fly. Shun Mizutani‘s third single of the game drove in two to make it 6-2. Tamiya’s second double sparked a two-run Fighters’ eighth.
Swallows 3, Marines 3, 12 innings: At Jingu “Tokyo’s sacrifice to corporate greed and political malfeasance” Stadium, Lotte extended its unbeaten streak to 12 games, including three ties after erasing a one-run ninth-inning deficit.
Atsuki Taneichi hit a batter with his first pitch of the game, and the runner came home on a groundout and a Munetaka Murakami single. The Marines counterattacked in a two-run fourth, on a Neftali Soto single, a Katsuya Kakunaka double, a groundout and a Hisanori Yasuda single.
Norichika Aoki led off Yakult’s two-run fifth with his second single. Another hit batsman, a sacrifice and a groundout tied it before Hideki Nagaoka‘s single put the Swallows up 3-2.
Three one-out ninth-inning singles off current Swallows closer Taichi Ishiyama from Ryusei Ogawa, Aito Takeda and pinch-hitter Gregory Polanco tied it. Ishiyama, however, got two fly outs, stranding two runners in scoring position, while the Marines bullpen pitched out of 11th- and 12th-inning jams to keep the team’s streak alive.
Giants 1, Hawks 0, 12 innings: At Tokyo Ugly Dome, Naoki Yoshikawa‘s one-out RBI double opened the scoring and ended the 4-hour, 29-minute game off SoftBank closer Roberto Osuna (0-2).
The Orix condition
For reasons unknown, the 2020 season saw the introduction of two big changes in Japanese pro baseball, the curtailing of media access to players, the catch-all expression of “lack of conditioning” to describe virtually every injury that has forced a player to be deactivated.
On Wednesday, Orix ascribed the deactivation of reliever Soichiro Yamazaki, who is 0-1 with a 1.35 ERA in 6-2/3 innings this year, due to his suffering from the upper-body variety.
“I’ll thoroughly work on my core training among other things and do whatever is necessary,” Yamasaki said.
