Alex Ramirez’s five-year run as manager of the DeNA BayStars will come to an end this season, the Central League club announced Saturday.
With Saturday’s loss to the Hiroshima Carp, Ramirez’s career record is 330-332 with 18 ties for a .498 winning percentage. In four seasons, he finished third twice and second once for a team that has historically been the league’s principal doormat.
Ramirez inherited a team that went .413 over the previous five seasons.
The franchise has had only six managers with at least 400 games the fewest of any of the 1950 expansion teams including the Kintetsu Buffaloes who went out of business after the 2004 season. Among the six longest-tenured managers, only Hiroshi Gondo had a winning percentage over .500. Gondo was, of course, fired for his failure to be politically correct and barely scraped past the 400-game mark.
DeNA’s ownership of the club starting in 2012 ushered in new ways of doing things and have had only two managers since—although as my colleagues have pointed out, the team only turned to Ramirez in 2016 when the mediocre Kiyoshi Nakahata refused to stay on.
The different stories going around Saturday all seem to agree that the BayStars had the talent base needed to win the pennant this year, but that was something the team’s ownership has been saying since 2017, and it’s only slightly truer now than it was then.
All things considered, the team has done quite well, although not perhaps enough to alleviate the heat in an organization that owner Tomoko Namba has turned into a pressure cooker.
Ramirez remains the only import player to get 2,000 hits in Japan. Due to his popularity, he is currently on track to be the second or third import player elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, since Wally Yonamine is already in and two-time triple crown-winner Randy Bass will probably make it through Japan’s version of the veteran’s committee before the writers elect Ramirez.
The article said that Daisuke Miura, the team’s former ace pitcher and current minor league manager, is in line to take over and that the team recognizes Ramirez’s contributions to building up the talent base and has reserved a player personnel job for him if he wants it.
Allen Kuri escaped a one-out bases-loaded jam on a questionable called third strike against Zelous Wheeler and allowed a run over eight innings in the Hiroshima Carp’s 4-3 win over the Yomiuri Giants at Tokyo Dome on Tuesday.
Giants ace Tomoyuki Sugano (13-1) took the loss as he failed to set a record by winning his 14th straight decision to start the season.
Kuri (6-5) allowed six hits, four with one out in the sixth, and one walk while striking out five. For the second straight start, Sugan struggled with his command. He allowed four runs, three earned, over six innings. He gave up seven hits, walked two, and struck out five.
Ryuhei Matsuyama doubled and scored the game’s first run in the second, and singled Hiroshima’s second run, in the Carp’s three-run sixth.
Yoshihiro Maru and Wheeler hit back-to-back homers to open the ninth against closer Geronimo Franzua, who notched his 14th save.
In his postgame hero interview, the interviewer, supplied by the Giants asked Kuri about his game and included his thoughts about his opponent’s winning streak.
Q: You were aware of Sugano and his record weren’t you?
Kuri: “I approach games with a challenger’s mentality, and really only focus on one batter at a time.”
Q: It must have been a big thing for you and for your team to end Sugano’s record win streak, wasn’t it?
Kuri: “I really wasn’t aware of his record, and so I wasn’t really conscious of it. Thinking about it afterward, I’m glad we won.”
No. 2 hitter Yota Kyoda doubled, walked and singled to ignite three run-scoring innings as Zoilo Almonte and Dayan Viciedo drove in two runs apiece in the Chunichi Dragons’ 4-2 win over the Hanshin Tigers at Nagoya Dome.
Tigers cleanup hitter Yusuke Oyama took over the CL home run lead with a two-run blast in the first off Akiyoshi Katsuno (4-4), but the Dragons tied it in the home half against tough lefty Haruto Takahashi (4-4).
Viciedo doubled in the tying run in the first and Almonte doubled in the go-ahead run in the third. Viciedo’s second RBI double made it 4-2 in the fifth.
Daisuke Sobue faced Oyama with two outs and the tying runs on base in the eighth but struck him out to end the inning, and Raidel Martinez recorded his 19th save.
BayStars wallop Swallows
The DeNA BayStars responded to another article ripping manager Alex Ramirez with a three-home run game in an 8-1 win over the Yakult Swallows at Tokyo’s Jingu Stadium.
Tyler Austin doubled off the wall and scored in the sixth against Swallows starter Hirotoshi Takanashi (3-5) on Keita Sano’s 17th home run. Toshiro Miyazaki hit his 14th for the BayStars and Yamato Maeda his third.
Shinichi Onuki (9-4) allowed a run over six innings. He allowed five hits and struck out eight without a walk.
Kasaya outduels Yamamoto
Unheralded lefty Shunsuke Kasaya (3-3) allowed a hit and two walks over five scoreless innings, allowing the SoftBank Hawks to scrape out a 2-0 win against the Orix Buffaloes at Osaka’s Kyocera Dome.
Orix ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto (8-4) allowed one run on five hits and two walks over eight innings while striking out seven. No. 9 hitter Hikaru Kawase and light-hitting leadoff man Ukyo Shuto put good swings on a pair of straight fastballs in the third inning to account for the Hawks’ first run.
Rei Takahashi, Sho Iwasaki, Livan Moinelo and Yuito Mori each worked one scoreless inning to close it out.
Marines battle back
Shuhei Fukuda opened the game with a big play in center field and singled with one out in the ninth and scored the winning run to end it as Seiya Inoue doubled him home to lift the Lotte Marines to a 4-3 walk-off win over the Rakuten Eagles at Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium.
Eagles ace Takahiro Norimoto allowed two runs over seven innings, but Kazuhisa Makita let in the tying run in the eighth and closer Alan Busenitz (1-2) took the loss in the ninth.
The Eagles took a one-run lead in the first when Daichi Suzuki homered off starter Ayumu Ishikawa after Fukuda made a diving catch in the gap to rob rookie Hiroto Kobukata of a leadoff hit.
Takahashi, Garrett blank Fighters
Kona Takahashi allowed three walks and four hits over eight innings and Reed Garrett completed the five-hit shutout as the Seibu Lions scored early and often in a 7-0 win over the Nippon Ham Fighters at Sapporo Dome.
Takahashi improved to 7-8, while Fighters starter Naoyuki Uwasawa (8-5) allowed five runs over six innings.
Active roster moves 10/13/2020
Deactivated players can be re-activated from 10/23
