On Friday in Japan, another pitcher came within spitting distance of a no-hitter until home runs left him a two-hit complete-game loser, Tyler Austin went off at Jingu Stadium, Seiya Hosokawa and Hiroto Takahashi stopped Yomiuri, and Carter Stewart Jr. continued to roll, and at a park that has really given him trouble, although it should be illegal to call Seibu’s summer sweat box a “park.”
Far from the field, we had some huge news, largely because of how Japan handled it.
Friday’s games:
Fighters 2, Marines 1: At Chiba Marine Stadium, Takuya Kato (4-6) struck out six without a walk over 7-1/3 innings to outduel fellow lefty Kazuya Ojima (7-7), who went the distance in a two-hitter complete-game loss.
Kazunari Ishii broke up the scoreless game, and Ojima’s no-hit bid, by leading off Nippon Ham’s eighth inning by drilling his third home run well back into the right-field stands. Yuya Gunji made it 2-0 off the Marines lefty in the ninth with his eighth home run before the Marines got a run in the ninth off Fighters closer Seigi Tanaka, who earned his 15th save.
Dragons 1, Giants 0: At Nagoya Dome, Seiya Hosokawa hit his 12th home run to lead off Chunichi’s second, Hiroto Takahashi (7-1) struck out 12 while allowing four hits and no walks, and Raidel Marinez recorded his 29th save. Shosei Togo (7-5) went seven innings to take the loss.
Hawks 4, Lions 0: At the domed stadium formerly known as “Prince,” Carter Stewart Jr. (4-2), pitching off his least favorite NPB mound, lost his strikeout mojo but threw 97 pitches over seven innings in the world’s largest outdoor sauna. Having struck out 23 batters over his past two starts, Stewart fanned three, while walking two, hitting two and surrendering three hits.
Seibu’s third inning ended with an easy out at the plate, thanks to Ukyo Shuto‘s ability to cut a ball off before it reached the wall in left center. Wataru Takagi tried to score from first but lacked the juice to score despite a one-hop throw back to the infield and an off-line relay.
SoftBank scored twice in the fourth against Natsuki Takeuchi. Ryoya Kurihara led off with a double, Tomoya Masaki singled him home with two outs, took second on the throw and scored on a single by Taisei Makihara. Having missed nearly three months, Makihara’s RBI was his first since April 14.
Masaki opened SoftBank’s two-run seventh with his third single and scored on a Takuya Kai single. The Hawks catcher scored via a wild pitch, a balk and a Kenta Imamiya RBI single.
Carp 1, Tigers 0: At Koshien Stadium, Hiroki Tokoda (9-5) struck out six without a walk, while pitching out of a couple of jams in his seven innings. As a result of the CL’s two 1-0 decisions, the Carp edged past Yomiuri into first place, on winning percentage.
Trailing 1-0, the Tigers opened the seventh with back-to-back singles. Center fielder Shogo Akiyama short-hopped a liner and on video appeared to get a force at second, and looked absolutely pissed when the umps failed to overturn the call. With no outs and the bases loaded, Tokoda got a 6-2-3 double play and a fly out to end the threat. Taylor Hearn and Ryoji Kuribayashi wrapped it up with Kuribayashi earning his 25th save.
Hanshin starter Shoki Murakami (3-7) cruised through the first four innings before back-to-back fifth-inning singles and an error, Hanshin’s NPB-leading 56th, set up the game’s only run.
Eagles 3, Buffaloes 2: At Hotto Motto Field Kobe, Rakuten took a 3-0 fourth-inning lead off Ryuhei Sotani (5-5) when Hideto Asamura singled and scored on a Maikel Franco single and Toshiki Abe homered. The Buffaloes got to Takahisa Hayakawa (7-3) for two in the sixth after a Ryo Ota single, a Tomoya Mori double and Ryoma Nishikawa‘s third single of the game. Hayakawa struck out seven over eight innings, and Takahiro Norimoto worked around Yuma Tongu‘s two-out double to record his 21st save.
BayStars 8, Swallows 7: At Jingu “Tokyo’s sacrifice to corporate greed and governmental malfeasance” Stadium, Yakult’s ninth-inning comeback fell short after DeNA torched the hosts on a pair of Tyler Austin two-run homers and then hung on
Koki Kajiwara broke the ice with a two-out two-run single off Kojiro Yoshimura, and Tyler Austin followed with a two-run homer, his 13th, before Yakult caught up against Andre Jackson with a run in the first, set up by Hideki Nagaoka‘s two-out double, and three in the fourth, when Tetsuto Yamada and Nagaoka each doubled in a run.
Yakult took a 5-4 lead on Munetaka Murakami‘s 16th home run and his first since June 29. Ryuki Watarai, who singled and scored in the second, doubled and scored on Kajiwara’s second RBI single. Tyler Austin then homered for the first time since the second inning to make it 7-5 DeNA.
Jose Osuna made it a one-run game in the seventh with his 11th homer. He singled and scored in the ninth, when the Swallows left the tying run on first and the potential winning run on first.
Where there’s smoke there’s fired
The 19-year-old captain of Japan’s Olympic women’s artistic gymnastic team, Shoko Miyata, returned from the team’s pre-Olympic training camp in Monaco on Thursday, and on Friday, the Japan Gymnastic Association announced that she had withdrawn from the Paris Olympics because, according to the JGA, she confessed to have smoked and drank on one occasion while staying at Japan’s National Training Center.
There was no statement from Miyata, who because her absence is not due to either injury or illness, cannot be replaced by an alternate, will leave the team short-handed.
The BBC reported “Miyata has been sent home” while other outlets used the term “banished” and “fired,” because it seems highly unlikely someone would train excessively for years and then say, “Oh I messed up. I’ll try again four years later.”
She wasn’t at the press conference but the JGA brought a lawyer along just in case. It wasn’t needed as the JGA made it sound like Miyata left completely of her own accord.
The JGA indicated that Miyata, Japan’s national all-around champion, had been miserable, stressed out and a shadow of her normal self in training, which actually makes their story sound reasonable. On the other hand, Japan loves nothing better than bringing down big names who break the rules, and rubbing their face in the shame.
It is illegal to smoke or drink in Japan before the age of 20, and smoking is a violation of Japan’s Olympic team’s code. As to her admitting to smoking “once,” there are reports she had been warned in the past about her smoking.
So while the JGA’s stance is that Miyata quit the team, and the Japan press is reporting it that way, many Japanese are not buying it. One celebrity Hideo Higashikokubaru said, “The association’s decision is appropriate,” although I’m not certain whether he’s referring to its decision to can her or its decision to pretend it was her idea to quit.
While every culture has a use for white lies, they are considered a valuable method of communication in Japan. A home run hitter who uppercuts a hanging curve into the upper deck and says in the postgame hero interview, that he was not trying for a home run, is playing that game.
It is considered bad form to say one is trying to do anything but be a small cog in the team machine, so the lie that is obvious to everybody is taken as a show of respect to the game. In this case, Higashikokubaru is interpreting the JGA’s stance as a white lie, and that everyone believes she was forced out.
