Tuesday brought Japan Series Game 3, a rematch of last year’s Game 2, when Keiji Takahashi threw his first career shutout to beat Hiroya Miyagi 2-0 at Tokyo Dome.
We also had a notable retirement and news that a pitcher, who within the span of five years was a big-ticket free agent, a league-leader in wins and a prominent posting to MLB, will not receive a contract offer for next season.
Japan Series offer: 3 free months
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Let’s get to the game first.
Game 3
Swallows 7, Buffaloes 1: At Osaka Dome, Miyagi and Takahashi kept up a scoreless pitchers’ duel through four innings. Miyagi was one out away from escaping a jam after allowing scratch no-out singles and threw a fastball down broadway to Tetsuto Yamada, who had his first series hit, an infield single, in the third. The Swallows captain took a big bite out of the cookie and hit the facing of the second deck in left for a three-run homer, Yakult’s fifth of the series.
Munetaka Murakami chased Miyagi with a one-out sixth-inning double, but ageless side-armer Motoki Higa stranded two to keep the game from getting away. Yakult held Daichi Takeyasu’s feet to the fire in the sixth when a leadoff bunt single was followed by two walks and a hit batsman, with Murakami drawing a bases-loaded walk.
The Swallows cleanup hitter put the game to bed in the ninth with a two-run double off Hitomi Honda, went to third on an error and scored on a Jose Osuna single.
Takahashi struck out seven over six innings. Taichi Ishiyama struck out three while allowing two hits in the seventh, Noboru Shimizu, the Swallows’ setup man worked a 1-2-3 eighth, and once Yakult had a seven-run ninth-inning lead, manager Shingo Takatsu called on two relievers who hadn’t yet pitched, and the second allowed a run on three one-out singles.
About the only good news for the Buffaloes was that after stranding 25 runners in two games in Tokyo, they only left eight on base at home.
One sometimes sees team approaches to particular pitchers, and it sure looked like the Buffaloes approach to Takahashi was to take the first pitch, because they took 19 of 23 and were behind in the count 0-1 more often than not. Only Masataka Yoshida was really different, going after two first pitches. Yuma Tongu went after one, while Yutaro Sugimoto was up their hacking in his first at-bat and the Swallows had him swinging at everything.
Wednesday’s Game 4 is going to see Orix right-hander Taisuke Yamaoka go against the oldest active player in NPB, 42-year-old Swallows lefty Masanori Ishikawa. Should be good.
José Celestino “El Chamo” López to call it quits
José López, who came within seven Japan games of becoming the second player after Daryl Spencer with 1,000 games in both MLB and NPB, has announced his retirement. Lopez, who had a huge Japan debut season with the Yomiuri Giants in 2013, found himself starting most of the Giant’s games from the bench from the end of May 2014, as captain Shinnosuke Abe transitioned there from catching full time.
Unhappy with that unpredictable situation, Lopez signed with DeNA for 2015, where a load lifted off his shoulders as he played every day in the team’s final season under manager Kiyoshi Nakahata, and then worked with fellow Venezuelan Alex Ramirez as his manager through 2020.
Lopez led the CL in hits, total bases and RBIs in 2017, when the BayStars became the CL’s first third-place team to reach the Japan Series and he won a Best Nine award at first. Lopez won three Golden Gloves, and set an NPB record with1,632 consecutive errorless chances at first base from 2017 to 2019.
After his experience with the Giants, Lopez posted an .841 OPS against them, and an .808 OPS against every other opponent in his career.
Giants let former Blue Jay Yamaguchi walk
Pitcher Shun Yamaguchi, the son of a top-level sumo wrestler whose career went through some significant ups and downs, was told, the Yomiuri Giants said Tuesday, that he would not receive a contract for 2023.
Yamaguchi, who after a spell on the farm in May 2014 made a successful transition from closer to starter with DeNA, winning 11 of his 19 starts with five complete games and three shutouts, earning himself a big contract with Yomiuri.
That started poorly. Because of an injury, Yamaguchi didn’t make his Giants debut until June 14, and hurt his hand on a glass while drinking in the early hours of July 11, 2017, his 30th birthday, and assaulted a security guard at a hospital when he went to get treatment. Yamaguchi was suspended for the remainder of the season. He went 9-9 in 2018, before his 2019 career year when he went 15-4 with a 2.91 ERA.
His Giants contract came with a posting clause, a surprise to some top executives, whose team had publicly refused to recognize the validity of the posting system, and Yamaguchi asked the team to post him after his big season.
