Japanese pro baseball reached the final stage of its leagues’ foreplay series with the Hanshin Tigers taking on the Central League champion Yakult Swallows for up to six games in Tokyo, and the SoftBank Hawks in Osaka to face the Pacific League champion Orix Buffaloes, where Yoshinobu Yamamoto seemed to be making a personal appeal for me to change my PL MVP vote…
Swallows 7, Tigers 1: At Jingu Stadium, Yuki Nishi, worked extra carefully to Munetaka Murakami after issuing a one-out walk to Tetsuto Yamada. With two on and two outs, Nishi put a 2-0 pitch in Jose Osuna’s wheelhouse and things went downhill from there for Hanshin.
Swallows right-hander Yasuhiro “Ryan” Ogawa gave up a leadoff double to Yusuke Oyama in the second and on a night when Ogawa was rolling his eyes at infamous ump Kazuyuki Shirai’s strike zone judgement, caught the break of all breaks.
Fumihito Haraguchi fouled off seven two-strike pitches and easily checked his swing on a 3-2 pitch, Ogawa’s 13th, but was rung up by first base ump Tetsuo Yamaji, whom I can only guess, wasn’t paying attention.
It was one of those days when the hardest hit balls Ogawa gave up were lined into outfielders’ gloves. Osuna double to open the third and made it 5-0 on a Domingo Santana sac fly. Santana homered in the sixth to make it 7-1. Nishi allowed five runs in four innings. The Tigers outhit the Swallows 9-7 but also drew only one walk to the Swallows’ five and hit into two double plays.
Hanshin came close to another run in the eighth, when Jefry Marte doubled but was cut down at the plate trying to score on Koji Chikamoto’s two-out single.
Buffaloes 4, Hawks 0: At Osaka Dome, this was decided by the pitchers, Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out 10 over eight innings without issuing a walk, and Shuta Ishikawa walked four. He forced in the first run when Yutaro Sugimoto battled back from an 0-2 count to draw a walk.
“I’m a little ashamed for pumping my fist on a walk, but I got carried away,” Sugimoto said.
Jerry Lewis would have been proud of the Buffaloes walking their way to a 3-0 lead. Ishikawa left with one out and one on in the fifth. Yuma Mune singled and stole second off reliever Tomohisa Ozeki with two outs, and Masataka Yoshida was walked intentionally.
Ozeki walked Yuma Tongu on four pitches and Masahiro Nishino on five. Keisuke Izumi surrendered an RBI single to Sugimoto, and Yoshida completed the scoring in the seventh with a solo homer.
The loss was SoftBank’s first in 19 postseason games, since the Hawks dropped Game 2 of the 2018 Japan Series in Hiroshima to the Carp.
The Swallows and Buffaloes are each within one win and one tie of the Japan Series. The Buffaloes will send Hiroya Miyagi to the mound on Thursday against the Hawks’ Yugo Bando, while Yakult will go with strike-thrower ;Cy Sneed against a pitcher whose concept of the strike zone has been somewhat ambiguous, hard-throwing Shintaro Fujinami.
