We’ve had some beatings this week, but the Yakult Swallows had a full game’s worth of a hiding in one inning on Saturday, when Hiroshima beat the living Carp out of them. Yakult still leads the Central League by 6-1/2 games over DeNA, but we have a new leader in the Pacific League.
Masahiro Tanaka was on the mound trying to keep the Rakuten Eagles from falling behind the third-place, Orix Buffaloes, who sent Yoshinobu Yamamoto out in their big matchup with the SoftBank Hawks, so here’s a breakdown of his arsenal:
Yoshinobu Yamamoto arsenal
Here’s a breakdown of Yamamoto’s pitches with the average Runs Created with every pitch thrown, the rate of swings that miss bats, and the rate of taken pitches called strikes.
Pitch
RC
Total
Miss rate
Called rate
Fastball
.0256
1,061
.19
.40
Fork
.0117
720
.39
.24
Curve
.0117
425
.27
.44
Cutter
.0250
194
.20
.37
Slider
.0942
69
.27
.14
Shoot
.0218
12
.40
.14
Data through Sept. 6, 2022
Of pitches thrown at least 400 times by a single pitcher this season, Yamamoto’s forkball and curve are tied for ninth most valuable this season in Japan. His fastball ranks 68th out of 122.
Batters have missed his forkball 39 percent of the time, sixth best in Japan. The top two are Kodai Senga’s forkball (.56) and Roki Sasaki’s (.51). Yamamoto’s curve is ranked 26th and is tied for fourth among the pitches most looked at for called strikes.
Carp 15, Swallows 7: At Jingu Stadium, Hiroshima scored 12 runs in one inning for the first time since the 1984 CL champions beat down the Swallows, also at Jingu, that May.
We had four games Thursday, after the Swallows and Dragons were rained out, and the BayStars and Carp were called in the top of the fourth on a night of thundershowers in the Tokyo area. The Hanshin Tigers, unfortunately, were rained on indoors.
In Sendai, five different Rakuten Eagles homered, while Takeya Nakamura turned back the clock and turned out the lights on the Buffaloes.
Lions 3, Buffaloes 2: At Seibu Dome, six-time PL home run leader Takeya Nakamura opened the scoring with his fifth homer of the season, a two-run fourth-inning shot off Sachiya Yamasaki. With the score tied 2-2 and one out in the ninth, Nakamura, whose nickname “Okawari-kun” means the kid who wants another helping, came back for seconds, ending the game with a solo homer off Jacob Waguespack (2-5).
Seibu’s Wataru Matsumoto faced a minimum of trouble through four innings but one-out singles by Joe McCarthy and Kotaro Kurebayashi and a hit batsman loaded the bases and Ryoichi Adachi singled in two. Matsumoto pitched out of two-on no-out jam in the sixth but finished with a 1-2-3 seventh. Two relievers retired six of the seven batters they faced to set up Nakamura’s sayonara homer.
Giants 7, Tigers 0: At Tokyo Dome, rookie Iori Yamasaki (3-3) allowed three hits over eight innings, singled in the Giants’ fourth run in a five-run second to chase Aaron Wilkerson (5-5) and retired the final 15 batters he faced.
The win was the Giants’ first in three games since they canceled six games after most of their roster was infected with the coronavirus.
Yoshihiro Maru hit one of the Giants’ late home runs, making it the seventh straight season the two-time CL MVP has hit 20 or more.
Fighters 3, Hawks 3, 12 innings: At Sapporo Dome, Colin Rea walked four batters through four innings, but did not allow a hit until Ryusei Sato and Yuki Umebayashi singled to open the fifth. A sacrifice and a groundout trimmed the Hawks’ lead to 3-1 before Chusei Mannami tied it with his 11th home run.
Ukyo Shuto hit the game’s first pitch for his fourth home run off Toshihiro Sugiura, who left the bases loaded in the second. The Hawks loaded the bases with no outs in the third on singles by Hikaru Kawase and Alfredo Despaigne and a fielder’s choice before Taisei Makhihara’s single made it 3-0.
Conner Menez got the first out when catcher Umebayashi picked off Despaigne and once more ended an inning with the bases jammed with Hawks. Menez worked two scoreless innings, as did Kosei Yoshida, as a host of relievers kept the Hawks off the bases.
After the game was tied, it was the Fighters’ turn to waste opportunities, stranding five runners over the next three innings and leaving the bases loaded in the 10th.
