Sunday was the final day of Japan’s preseason exhibition season, with teams scheduled to begin playing meaningful games from Friday. One game, between the Lotte Marines and DeNA BayStars was rained out, depriving us of our second look at flame-throwing 19-year-old Roki Sasaki, who was slated to throw two innings for the Marines.
I don’t know what was going on at Osaka’s Kyocera Dome this weekend, but the Hanshin Tigers and Orix Buffaloes struck out A LOT in their three games, 19 times on Friday, 22 times each on Saturday and Sunday.
Did Orix reduce the lighting in its home park to give their pitchers more confidence going into the season? I mean if your team is as bad as the Buffaloes, no hitters being able to see the ball kind of levels the playing field.
The teams tied 1-1 on Sunday, as Hanshin’s Joe Gunkel struck out six while allowing an unearned run over five innings. Taisuke Yamaoka, who opened the Buffaloes’ season last year, struck out 10 over six innings while allowing his first run over 13-2/3 preseason innings.
At MetLife Dome, Yakult Swallows slugger Munetaka Murakami homered twice, while the club’s top draft pick from 2019, teenager Yasunobu Okugawa started in an 8-6 loss to the Seibu Lions.
Katsunori Hirai, the Lions’ bullpen workhorse who’s moving to the rotation this year, allowed five runs over 5-2/3 innings.
At Nagoya’s Vanetelin Dome, Chunichi Dragons lefty Shinnosuke Ogasawara ended the preseason on a hopeful note, allowing a run on two walks and a hit over six innings in a 9-2 win over the Nippon Ham Fighters.
A day after hitting everything Dragons starter Yuya Yanagi threw up there, the Fighters returned to hitless wonder mode.
“Except for yesterday, we haven’t been hitting at all ,” manager Hideki Kuriyama said according to the Chunichi Sports. “As the manager, of course I’m concerned because we’re simply not hitting the ball hard.”
At Tokyo Dome, it was a tough day for lefties as impressive Rakuten Eagles rookie Takahisa Hayakawa allowed five runs over 4-2/3 innings in an 8-4 loss to the Yomiuri Giants, whose southpaw starter, Nobutaka Imamura gave up four runs over five innings.
Giants skipper Tatsunori Hara had some harsh words for catcher Takumi Oshiro’s pitch calling, Daily Sports reported.
“When he’d get to two strikes, he’d pitch around, pitch around, pitch around, until the count was full and then they’d end up walking a guy. I think the pitchers see that the same way I do,” said Hara, whose team has become the Central League’s flag bearers of trying to stay out of the strike zone as much as possible in the hopes batters chase.
At Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium, both SoftBank Hawks lefty Tsuyoshi Wada and Carp right-hander Yusuke Nomura had solid scoreless outings in Hiroshima’s 2-1 win. Wada struck out four over four innings, while Nomura fanned three over five.
Kevin Cron went hitless with two strikeouts for Hiroshima to finish the preseason batting .063.
