Tag Archives: Hanshin Tigers

NPB 2020 Oct. 21

Wednesday’s games

Other news

Senga deals Hawks to victory

The SoftBank Hawks turned a pitchers’ duel into a rout with seven runs off the Nippon Ham Fighters’ bullpen in a 9-1 win at Sapporo Dome on Wednesday. The Hawks, looking to win their first Pacific League pennant in three years, lowered their magic number to eight.

The Japanese news on Thursday will be the Hawks HAVE a magic number. But don’t be confused. That’s just the way they do things here.

Hawks ace Kodai Senga (9-6) allowed a run in the second on three ground balls that weren’t particularly well hit. He left after 6-1/3 innings having allowed seven hits and a walk while striking out five.

Drew VerHagen (7-6) allowed three runs over 6-2/3 innings. He gave up eight hits and a walk while striking out six.

Until the bullpen got involved everything revolved around the Hawks’ Ukyo Shuto and the Fighters’ Taishi Ota.

Shuto dropped a ground ball at second, allowing second-inning leadoff hitter Sho Nakata to reach on an error. Ryo Watanabe reached on a grounder to third. Ota smacked a breaking ball up in the zone through the infield, and Nakata just beat the throw home.

The Hawks took the lead in the fifth. Takuya Kai singled and scored when Shuto burned around the bases on a triple to the gap in left center. The Hawks’ speedster then scored on Akira Nakamura’s fly to right, barely beating the tag after a strong throw from Ota arrived on the first-base side of the plate.

With one out and two on in the bottom of the sixth, Ota hit a fly to medium deep right field,  Nakata barreled home, but Ryoya Kurihara’s throw was on the third-base side of the plate, and lacking Shuto’s speed, Nakata was out. Shuto sparked a three-run seventh with a two-out walk that chased VerHagen. Reliever Mizuki Hori walked Nakamura and surrendered an RBI single to Yuki Yanagita. Takahiro Nishimura came in and gave up a two-run double to Yurisbel Gracial.

Déjà vu all over again

For the second straight night, Shuta Tonosaki led off the bottom of the ninth against Lotte Marines closer Naoya Masuda (3-4) and scored the winning run on a ball hit by Kakeru Yamanobe to lift the Seibu Lions to a 2-1 win at MetLife Dome.

For the second straight night, Lions closer Tatsushi Masuda (5-0) worked dangerously. A night after he blew a one-run save, he pitched out of trouble to keep the game tied. Tonosaki drew a leadoff walk and instead of scoring on a dropped fly ball as he did on Tuesday, scored on a Yamanobe single.

Ernesto Mejia’s fourth-inning RBI single opened the scoring, and the Marines tied it in the seventh on a double play after Ikuhiro Kiyota and Hisanori Yasuda singled to open the inning.

Oshiro HR lifts Buffaloes

Koji Oshiro homered in the ninth inning off Yuki Matsui (4-5) to lift the Orix Buffaloes to a 6-5 win over the Rakuten Eagles at Sendai’s Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi.

Buffaloes setup man Tyler Higgins (3-3) earned the win after he surrendered the tying run in the bottom of the eighth. Brandon Dickson loaded the bases in the ninth but allowed no runs to notch his 15th save.

The Eagles’ Stefen Romero capped a four-run first inning with a three-run home run, his 21st.

Swallows win battle for the ages

Forty-year-old Masanori Ishikawa (2-7) allowed a run over six innings and Munetaka Murakami, who is 20 years, 11 days younger, brought the Yakult Swallows from a run down with his 24th home run to beat the Central League-leading Yomiuri Giants 2-1 at Tokyo’s Jingu Stadium.

Giants captain Hayato Sakamoto broke up the scoreless game with a fourth-inning home run, his 17th. The visitors blew a chance for a fifth-inning insurance run when Yoshihiro Maru was put out trying to score from third when Takumi Oshiro failed to bunt a breaking ball in the strike zone.

With Norichika Aoki aboard in the sixth, Murakami hit an improbably low pitch from Giants lefty Yuki Takahashi and hit a nine-iron into the left-field stands for an opposite-field home run.

Dragons centurian Viciedo beats BayStars

Dayan Viciedo’s three-run home run, his 16th of the season and the 100th of his Japan career, overturned a 2-1 deficit and lifted the Chunichi Dragons to a 4-2 win over the DeNA BayStars at Nagoya Dome.

Tyler Austin singled in both of DeNA’s runs in the first and third, but Edwin Escobar surrendered one-out hits to Yohei Oshima and Yota Kyoda before Viciedo took him deep with two outs. The Dragons bullpen, weakened by the loss of closer Raidel Martinez, allowed six of the BayStars’ final 13 batters to reach but no runs.

Marte returns, homers in Tigers’ win

Jefry Marte returned after a 3-1/2 month absence to smash a two-run homer that lifted the Hanshin Tigers to a 2-0 win over the Hiroshima Carp at Koshien Stadium.

Koyo Aoyagi (7-8) worked 5-1/3 innings. He gave up a hit, two walks and hit a batter while striking out eight. Closer Robert Suarez, the Tigers’ fifth pitcher, worked a 1-2-3 ninth to take over the CL saves lead with his 22nd.

Carp starter Atsushi Endo (3-6) allowed two runs over six innings. He struck out nine.

Tigers may be done with Fukudome

Kosuke Fukudome, who at 43 is the oldest player in Nippon Professional Baseball, has been notified by the Central League’s Hanshin Tigers that he is not in their plans for next year, the Nikkan Sports reported Wednesday.

Such notices usually mean a player will be released or sold, but that is not always the case. It is noteworthy that when the Tigers became a novel coronavirus cluster in September, Fukudome had been one of those who had broken team protocols by dining out in a group of eight — twice the team’s limit.

As happens in Japan, at least one head had to role when a problem occurred in conjunction with rulebreaking and team president Kenji Ageshio announced on Oct. 9 that he would step down.

Another thing that happens in Japan is that the punishment and blame handed to athletes who break the rules is in inverse proportion to their competitiveness.

When a number of Japanese badminton players were found to have visited a casino–which are illegal in Japan–the most lenient treatment was reserved for world No. 2 Kento Momota, who missed the 2016 Olympics but has since returned to competition.

When a number of Yomiuri Giants pitchers were found to have bet on baseball, the lightest punishment was reserved for the only one who was any good. And after sitting out for one year and showing remorse, lefty Kyosuke Takagi resumed his career.

In 2019, Fukudome posted a .347 on-base-percentage, his worst as a regular in Japan. This year, his struggles have intensified, making him vulnerable to pay a price for his failure to follow the rules.

A former CL MVP, Fukudome spent five seasons in the United States, where he may have had the worst NPB-to-MLB translated value in history.

An on-base machine with good power (career .383 OBP .495 slug), who was killed by his first pro home park, Nagoya Dome, Fukudome’s offensive numbers in the majors (.359 .395) fell off considerably despite playing in excellent hitters’ parks.

Using Bill James Win Shares, most Japanese players lose some value going to the States, and after coming back past their prime, regain a little or stay about where they were in terms of value. Fukudome dropped sharply when he left and rebounded sharply when he returned.

I haven’t had a chance to speak with him about it, but MLB’s more challenging travel requirements and training routines may have been particularly hard on him. These differences can be very tough on Japanese players–regardless of Hideki Okajima‘s assertion that it was easy for him and “if it’s hard to adjust, you don’t belong in MLB.”

Marines: Laird has undergone surgery

Lotte Marines third baseman Brandon Laird underwent surgery for a lumbar disk hernia on Monday in Arizona, the Pacific League club announced Wednesday. The 33-year-old is in his sixth Japan season and his second with the Chiba-based Marines.

He was deactivated on Aug. 5 and traveled to the States 11 days later. He has played in 39 games this year with six home runs, giving him 169 in Japan. Laird was instrumental in the Nippon Ham Fighters winning the 2016 PL pennant and Japan Series, and is well known in Japan for his “sushi-making” home run celebration.

TIme for sushi.

Buffaloes drop ace Yamamoto

A day after yet another sharp outing in which he allowed two runs over seven innings, the Orix Buffaloes dropped ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Wednesday.

Yamamoto was taken off the hook for the loss when Orix came back to tie it 2-2 in the ninth inning. The 22-year-old leads both leagues with 149 strikeouts and tops the Pacific League with a 2.20 ERA and 126-2/3 innings. The move, according to the Daily Sports, was made out of consideration for his lower-body fitness and overall fatigue.

The Chunichi Dragons also made a move, dropping closer Raidel Martinez, who has struck out over 11 batters per nine innings and is tied for the league saves lead with Robert Suarez of the Hanshin Tigers.

As usual, the Dragons failed to specify any reason for Martinez’s move other than saying it was due to a lack of lower-body fitness.”

Active roster moves 10/21/2020

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 10/31

Central League

Activated

TigersP66Ippei Ogawa
TigersIF31Jefry Marte
TigersIF55Naomasa Yokawa
DragonsP53Luis Gonzalez

Dectivated

TigersP77Onelki Garcia
TigersP92Kazuo Ito
TigersOF32Kota Inoue
DragonsP97Raidel Martinez

Pacific League

Activated

BuffaloesP61Tsubasa Sakakibara
BuffaloesP68Yu Suzuki

Dectivated

HawksP67Shunsuke Kasaya
FightersP15Naoyuki Uwasawa
BuffaloesP18Yoshinobu Yamamoto
BuffaloesP28Ryoga Tomiyama

Starting pitchers for Oct. 22, 2020

Pacific League

Fighters vs Hawks: Sapporo Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Kosei Yoshida (0-0, 8.53) vs Matt Moore (5-3, 3.00)

Eagles vs Buffaloes: Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Takayuki Kishi (4-0, 3.74) vs Daiki Tajima (4-5, 4.01)

Lions vs Marines: MetLife Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Zach Neal (4-7, 5.13) vs Kazuya Ojima (7-7, 3.50)

Central League

Swallows vs Giants: Jingu Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Daiki Yoshida (2-6, 4.82) vs Angel Sanchez (7-3, 3.34)

Dragons vs BayStars: Nagoya Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Yudai Ono (9-5, 1.92) vs Kentaro Taira (3-4, 2.48)

Tigers vs Carp: Koshien Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Minoru Iwata (1-1, 4.58) vs Kazuki Yabuta (0-2, 4.99)

NPB 2020 Oct. 6

Tuesday’s games

Other news

Marines plagued by Yamamoto

The Lotte Marines had enough trouble on Tuesday without having to face Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who allowed two hits and two walks over eight innings to improve to 8-3 in the Orix Buffaloes’ 3-0 win at Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium.

The Marines played the game after the local health authorities told them it would not be necessary to call it off despite the club having become an official coronavirus cluster with two positive tests on Sunday and 11 more on Tuesday – when the test results were announced a day later than expected.

Yamamoto struck out nine, and closer Brandon Dickson picked up the pace with two strikeouts in the ninth to secure his 12th save in a game played like no one wanted to stick around the ballpark any longer than they had to. The game wrapped up in 2 hours 27 minutes.

Ayumu Ishikawa, the Marines’ Opening Day starter, allowed all three runs over seven innings to fall to 7-4.

Takahashi outduels Senga

Reliever Kaima Taira got Lions starter Kona Takahashi (6-8) out of a seventh-inning jam with a double play as the Seibu Lions got past SoftBank Hawks ace Kodai Senga in a 3-1 win at MetLife Dome.

Senga (7-6) walked a career-high seven batters but still kept it close, allowing just one run over six innings in a 142-pitch effort.

Takahashi struck out eight, hit a batter and walked one while allowing two hits over 6-1/3 innings.

Tomoya Mori drove in all three Lions runs with a fifth-inning sacrifice fly and a two-run eighth-inning triple. Lions closer Tatsushi Masuda allowed a run in the ninth but notched his 24th save.

Fighters pluck win from Norimoto

Taishi Ota’s 11th home run of the year brought the Nippon Ham Fighters from behind against Rakuten Eagles’ ace Takahiro Norimoto (5-5) in a 5-3 win at Sapporo Dome.

Naoyuki Uwasawa (8-4) allowed three runs, one earned, over 6-1/3 innings to earn the win.

Sugano earns 100th career win

Tomoyuki Sugano improved to 13-0 thanks to some solid run support to earn his 100th career victory in the Yomiuri Giants’ 6-4 win over the DeNA BayStars at Tokyo Dome.

Yoshihiro Maru broke a 1-1 tie with a third-inning home run off rookie Yuya Sakamoto (3-1) who took his first career loss. Sugano had a fourth-inning hiccup when some poor pitches led to a two-run Jose Lopez homer. Zelous Wheeler canceled that out in the fifth with a two-run shot off former BayStars closer Yasuaki Yamasaki. Tyler Austin went deep off lefty Kota Nakagawa in the eighth for his 14th home run.

The Giants ace allowed three runs over seven innings on four hits, two walks and a hit batsman. Rubby De La Rosa worked the ninth for his 15th save.

Giants-BayStars highlights

Katsuno pitches Dragons past Swallows

Akiyoshi Katsuno (3-4) worked 7-2/3 innings against a depleted Yakult Swallows lineup squad and their scheduled starting pitcher in the Chunichi Dragons’ 4-0 win at Nagoya Dome.

Announced Swallows starter Yasuhiro Ogawa was scratched after developing a fever. Out of concern of a possible coronavirus infection, the Swallows also kept star second baseman Tetsuto Yamada, shortstop Naomichi Nishiura and closer Taichi Ishiyama off the game roster. Ogawa tested negative, and the other three players are expected to play from Wednesday.

In Ogawa’s absence, the Swallows turned to rookie Takuma Kubo (0-1), who allowed all four runs in the second inning to earn his first career loss in his first career start. Katsuno allowed five hits, a walk, and hit a batter while striking out six.

Tigers, Carp draw

Hanshin Tigers closer Robert Suarez allowed the tying run to score in the bottom of the 10th but got out of the inning with the potential winning run on base in a 4-4 10-inning tie with the Hiroshima Carp at Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium.

Marines getting presidential

Perhaps the Lotte Marines’ home park should be known as the White House, where Wednesday’s game against the Orix Buffaloes went ahead after the local health authorities — perhaps following Donald Trump’s advice that we shouldn’t fear the virus– said there was no reason to cancel.

After over a day of waiting for test results that should have been known Monday after a game that shouldn’t have been played Sunday, the Lotte Marines announced Tuesday afternoon that seven players and four members of the team staff have now tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officially making the Marines Japan’s first pro sports body in Japan to become an infection cluster.

In addition to them, four others have been determined to have been in close contact with pitcher Daiki Iwashita, who fell ill on Saturday and returned a positive test on Sunday, the same day the team hosted the Seibu Lions. The four were seated near him on the team’s flight on Friday from Chitose Airport to Haneda Airport.

At the same time, the Marines announced that their Eastern League farm game against the DeNA BayStars’ minor leaguers had been called off, ostensibly because much of the farm team will be needed to replace the first team on the active roster. Wednesday’s game has also been scratched.

The infected and those in close contact have made 1,167 plate appearances this season, slightly more than one third of the team’s total and have accounted for 129-1/3 innings pitched of the team’s 811 this season.

On Sunday, the Marines tested everyone connected to the first team, but Monday and came and the club shrugged its shoulders and said, “Sorry. We haven’t heard anything.”

Iwashita fell ill after he returned from the team’s roadtrip to Sapporo, where he allowed two runs over six innings in his start.

One first-team staff member, who was not deemed to have been in close contact with Iwashita, also tested positive on Sunday.

On Sept. 25, the Hanshin Tigers called up nine players from their farm team to replace four who tested positive and five others who had been in close contact with them. The following day, the Tigers were only able to suit up 17 minor leaguers for their Western League farm game.

Who’s sick

  • P Daiki Iwashita
  • OF Takashi Ogino
  • OF Katsuya Kakunaka
  • OF Ikuhiro Kiyota
  • OF Tsuyoshi Sugano
  • IF Takeshi Toritani
  • SS Yutai Fujioka
  • IF Ryo Miki
  • Assistant coach Shota Ishimine
  • Four members of 1st team staff

Who’s been in contact

  • P Yusuke Azuma
  • P Fumiya Ono
  • OF Koshiro Wada
  • P Daiki Yamamoto

Swallows’ Ogawa held back due to fever

The Yakult Swallows pulled scheduled starter Yasuhiro Ogawa from Tuesday’s game against the Chunichi Dragons after the 30-year-old right-hander developed a 37.3 C fever. He was ordered to rest at the team’s hotel in Nagoya.

The Swallows opted to pull infielders Tetsuto Yamada and Naomichi Nishiura and closer Taichi Ishiyama from the game roster for Tuesday’s game game pending the result of a test on Ogawa.

Ramirez rumors starting again: Sponichi

Sports Nippon Annex reported Tuesday that the DeNA BayStars are considering replacing manager Alex Ramirez with minor league manager and former ace pitcher Daisuke Miura.

There appears nothing more concrete to this story than there was six weeks ago when some pundits picked apart Ramirez’s work and pointing out his unorthodox decisions, in an effort to promote the candidacy of someone else–hopefully someone who could then gift them coaching jobs with the team.

The team’s owner, Tomoko Namba, has indicated the team’s mission is to win, and a former DeNA international employee has said the pressure within the organization to do so–despite a limited talent base–is extreme and has turned the BayStars’ front office into a pressure cooker.

Active roster moves 10/6/2020

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 10/16

Central League

Activated

GiantsP26Yuki Takahashi
GiantsP40Yuri Furukawa
GiantsIF52Takumi Kitamura
CarpP58Reira Fujii
CarpOF38Koki Ugusa
SwallowsP69Ryuta Konno

Dectivated

GiantsP58Ryosuke Miyaguni
GiantsP95Hayato Horioka
GiantsIF98Estamy Urena

Pacific League

Activated

LionsOF58Masato Kumashiro
EaglesP43Sung Chia-hao
EaglesC44Yuichi Adachi
MarinesP11Chihaya Sasaki
MarinesP41Kakeru Narita
MarinesP86Jose Flores
MarinesC45Yuito Munetsugu
MarinesIF40Koki Fukuda
MarinesIF50Shin Matsuda
MarinesIF59Kei Hosoya
MarinesIF67Kenta Chatani
MarinesIF68Kenji Nishimaki
MarinesOF2Kyota Fujiwara
MarinesOF38Akito Takabe
FightersC60Takuya Kori

Dectivated

MarinesP24Yusuke Azuma
MarinesP27Daiki Yamamoto
MarinesP37Fumiya Ono
MarinesIF00Takashi Toritani
MarinesIF4Yudai Fujioka
MarinesIF23Ryo Miki
MarinesOF0Takashi Ogino
MarinesOF1Ikuhiro Kiyota
MarinesOF3Katsuya Kakunaka
MarinesOF31Tsuyoshi Sugano
MarinesOF63Koshiro Wada

Starting pitchers for Oct. 6, 2020

Pacific League

Fighters vs Eagles: Sapporo Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Drew VerHagen (6-5, 3.95) vs Hideaki Wakui (10-3, 3.06)

Lions vs Hawks: MetLife Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Shota Hamaya (2-1, 5.68) vs Shunsuke Kasaya (2-3, 3.26)

Marines vs Buffaloes: Zozo Marine Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Kazuya Ojima (6-6, 3.50) vs Andrew Albers (3-6, 3.80)

Central League

Giants vs BayStars: Tokyo Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Kazuto Taguchi (5-4, 4.42) vs Shingo Hirata (0-0, 3.19)

Dragons vs Swallows: Nagoya Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Yudai Ono (7-5, 2.18) vs Masanori Ishikawa (1-5, 4.65)

Carp vs Tigers: Mazda Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Atsushi Endo (2-4, 4.34) vs Minoru Iwata (1-0, 2.31)