Tag Archives: Jerry Sands

NPB wrap 5-28-21

Interleague Day 4 — Sato makes it rain

The Pacific League teams returned home after going 5-9-2 during the week at the Central League parks, and though the PL won the three blowouts, the CL escaped with three wins on Friday, thanks to the heroics of rookie Teruaki Sato.

In Japan, a teru teru bozu, is a kind of talisman, made of cloth or paper in the shape of a Halloween ghost figure that kids hang from windows in hopes of bringing good weather.

In this case, Tigers fans must have been crossing an awful lot of fingers, because the rookie rained home runs, pulled into a tie for the CL home run lead with 13 and became the first CL rookie to hit three in a game since Hall of Famer Shigeo Nagashima in 1958.

Fighters 10, Dragons 1

At Sapporo Dome, the big matchup appeared to be Nippon Ham rookie Hiromi Ito (2-4, 3.67) against Chunichi’s Sawamura Award-winning lefty Yudai Ono (2-3), but that pitchers’ duel turned one-sided in a hurry as the Fighters outhit the Dragons 16-5.

Ono struck out two walked one and allowed 11 hits over four innings as he surrendered six runs. Only two Fighters starters didn’t score, and those two, Kensuke Kondo and Ryo Watanabe, combined to drive in seven runs.

Dayan Viciedo had three hits, including a double, that set up Chunichi’s only run.

BayStars 7, Eagles 6

At Sendai’s Rakuten Seimei Park, Yamato Maeda chased Hideaki Wakui (5-3), who allowed two two-out sixth-inning singles before Maeda’s second home run made it a 5-4 game.

DeNA rookie Shugo Maki scored twice, and his eighth-inning solo homer, his ninth, turned out big after closer Kazuki Mishima surrendered a run in the ninth and ended the game with the go-ahead run on base to record his seventh save.

Lions 10, Tigers 7

At MetLife Dome, Sato crashed this party with his three homer night to send the Tigers to their third interleague win, Jerry Sands also homered for Hanshin, while Jefry Marte and Yusuke Oyama each had one-out RBI singles in the ninth that made it a 7-7 game against Reed Garrett (0-2), who served up Sato’s third.

Robert Suarez struck out the side in the ninth for his Japan-best 15th save.

Wu Nien-ting had three hits. His RBI double tied it 2-2 it 4-4 in the sixth. After the Tigers moved ahead in the seventh on an Oyama RBI single, Takeya Nakamura two-run homer was the big blow in Seibu’s three-run seventh.

Carp 10, Marines 8

At Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium, it was open season on pitchers as Lotte scored four runs with the help of five walks off Takuya Yasaki, and Hiroshima did the same against rookie Shota Suzuki (1-3), who allowed nine hits in his four innings.

Alejandro Mejia had four hits and scored twice for the Carp, who got four RBIs from Ryuhei Matsuyma. Brandon Laird led Lotte’s offense with a two-run first-inning homer and an RBI on a flyout to second, with Leonys Martin walking and scoring both times.

Carp rookie Ryoji Kuribayashi worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his 10th save and remained unscored upon in 19 games.

Buffaloes 9, Swallows 2

At Osaka’s Kyocera Dome, Masataka Yoshida hit his 11th homer, a two-run shot in the first off Rick van den Hurk (0-1), while Orix ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto (4-5) had the kind of game we associate with him, two runs on three walks, five hits and nine strikeouts over seven innings. Kotaro Kurebayashi and Stefen Romero also homered for the Buffaloes.

Hawks 9, Giants 3

At Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome, Wladimir Balentien hit two of the SoftBank Hawks’ four home runs as the defending Pacific League champs crushed the Central League’s Yomiuri Giants 9-3 in interleague play on Friday.

Balentien’s first home run of the season, a solo shot off Seishu Hatake (2-3) broke a 2-2 tie in the second. His two-run shot in the fourth capped four-run rally and iced the game at Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome.

“From the first home run, I felt, I was able to get good swings and hit them both on the button,” Balentien said.

The Giants opened the scoring on a two-run error in the first before Ryoya Kurihara tied it in the home half of the inning with a two-run homer, his fifth. Yuki Yanagita’s 11th home run, a third-inning, two-run shot made it 5-2.

SoftBank right-hander Shuta Ishikawa (3-3)  gave up three runs over six innings. He walked four, hit one and allowed five hits while striking out eight.

The Hawks and Giants have played the last two Japan Series, with the Hawks winning all eight games. The win was SoftBank’s 10th straight against Yomiuri, having won their final interleague game in 2019 and with no interleague last season.

Starting pitchers

Interleague

Fighters vs Dragons: Sapporo Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Drew VerHagen (1-4, 6.38) vs Kodai Umetsu (0-1, 0.00)

Eagles vs BayStars: Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Masahiro Tanaka (2-3, 2.84) vs Haruhiro Hamaguchi (2-4, 3.29)

Lions vs Tigers: MetLife Dome 5:45 pm, 4:45 am EDT

Tatsuya Imai (2-2, 2.62) vs Masashi Itoh (3-1, 2.57)

Marines vs Carp: Zozo Marine Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Manabu Mima (2-2, 3.51) vs Shogo Tamamura (0-2, 5.40)

Buffaloes vs Swallows: Kyocera Dome (Osaka) 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Daiki Tajima (2-2, 3.69) vs Yasuhiro Ogawa (4-1, 3.47)

Hawks vs Giants: PayPay Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Nick Martinez (3-1, 1.44) vs Angel Sanchez (4-2, 3.96)

Active roster moves 5/28/2021

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 6/7

Central League

Activated

DragonsIF63Naomichi Donoue
BayStarsP20Yuya Sakamoto
BayStarsP49Kevin Shackelford
BayStarsOF37Taishi Kusumoto
BayStarsOF52Seiya Hosokawa
CarpP41Takuya Yasaki

Dectivated

DragonsIF1Yota Kyoda
BayStarsP42Fernando Romero
BayStarsIF0Daisuke Nakai
BayStarsOF33Tomo Otosaka
SwallowsP11Yasunobu Okugawa

Pacific League

Activated

HawksP39Shuto Ogata
HawksP42Tomohisa Ozeki
LionsC78Masato Saito
LionsIF31Ryusei Sato
LionsIF63Ryusei Tsunashima
LionsIF99Ernesto Mejia
LionsOF68Junichiro Kishi
LionsOF72Seiji Kawagoe
BuffaloesP52Tyler Higgins

Dectivated

HawksP67Shunsuke Kasaya
MarinesP17Roki Sasaki
LionsP34Yasuo Sano
LionsP54Zach Neal
LionsC37Sena Tsuge
LionsIF6Sosuke Genda
LionsOF7Yuji Kaneko
LionsOF9Fumikazu Kimura
LionsOF53Aito Takeda
LionsOF58Masato Kumashiro
BuffaloesP98Chang Yi

NPB Wrap 5-19-21

Don’t call him “Junior”

I was informed tonight by my colleague that in Japanese, “junior” is pronounced “junia,” and not “Junya” – like the name of Hanshin’s starting pitcher on Tuesday, Junya Nishi. The Japanese language does that a lot, bases its transliterations on spellings rather than on pronunciation, so my name “James” in Japanese is written so that it end in “su” rather than “zu,” since the only consonant allowed to end a word in Japanese is “n.”

I was hoping Mel Rojas Jr would do something in this game then we could have had a “junia”- “junya” hero interview, since it is customary to refer to players by their last names AND the junior. Do people call Jackie Bradley Jr. “Bradley” or “Bradley Jr.?” I have no idea.

Tigers 3, Swallows 1

At Koshien Stadium, the aforementioned Junya Nishi (1-0) walked four but allowed no hits over five scoreless innings despite a first inning that caused Hanshin to warm up a reliever: Two straight walks followed by three straight three-ball counts to the meat of the Yakult Swallows order. But hard-hit lineout on a 3-2 pitch to Munetaka Murakami and a borderline 3-2 strike to Jose Osuna, and just like that, the 19-year-old was out of trouble.

Koji Chikamoto homered to open the scoring off Kazuto Taguchi (1-3) in the fifth. Another run was charged to the lefty on a throwing error by catcher Yuhei Nakamura. Nakamura singled home the Swallows’ only run in the eighth after two straight two-out hits off Yuzuru Iwazaki.

Yakult’s first hit career .238 hitter Naomichi Nishiura’s pinch-hit single, caused the announcer to say, “Of course, we should have expected Nishiura to get the first hit.” This was probably news to everyone beside Nishiura’s fans and his family.

Jerry Sands made an unsung play by cutting off Nakamura’s ball before it went for a two-run double, and followed that with a sung play, his 10th home run in the bottom of the inning to complete the scoring. Robert Suarez retired Tetsuto Yamada, Murakami and Osuna to end it in the ninth and notch his Japan-best 13th save.

Carp 10, Giants 2

At Tokyo Dome, new Hiroshima Carp import Kevin Cron drew a leadoff walk in the eighth, scored the go-ahead run and capped the nine-run outburst with a grand slam, his fourth home run. Carp starter Allen Kuri (5-3) threw a 124-pitch complete game, giving up six hits, including Kazuma Okamoto’s 11th home run, while striking out four.

The Giants’ Zelous Wheeler went for 0-for-4 as his 22-game hitting streak came to an end.

Yuki Takahashi (5-1), the CL’s pitcher of the month for March and April, allowed five runs on five walks and five hits over 5-1/3 innings.

Giants-Carp highlights

BayStars vs Dragons: Rained out.

Eagles 3, Fighters 2

At Sendai’s Rakuten Seimei Park, Hideto Asamura hit his fourth home run,his second in two games, and drove in all three Rakuten runs to make a winner out of Takahiro Norimoto (4-1), who allowed two unearned runs over six innings while striking out nine.  He allowed the only two hits the Fighters managed.

Tomohito Saki, Alan Busenitz and Yuki Matsui hamstrung the Fighters over the final three innings with Matsui earning his 12th save.

Takayuki Kato (3-1) went six for the Fighters, allowing three runs, two earned, over six innings in which he struck out six. Wang Po-jung singled in both of Nippon Ham’s runs in the sixth after an error by Asamura at second prolonged the inning.

Hawks 6, Lions 5

At MetLife Dome, Seibu’s Aito Takeda tied it 5-5 with a two-out two-run seventh-inning single only for SoftBank’s Nobuhiro Matsuda to hit a leadoff ninth-inning double that set up the go-ahead run to score on a Yuya Hasegawa pinch-hit sac fly off Reed Garrett (0-1). Hawks’ lefty Livan Moinelo, their sixth pitcher, worked around two walks in the ninth for his fifth save.

Marines 6, Buffaloes 4

At Osaka’s Kyocera Dome, Lotte’s Brandon Laird went 3-for-3 with a walk, scored twice and hit his eighth home run, while Yudai Fujioka reached base three times and scored three runs as the Marines took no prisoners against Orix ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3-5), who gave up six runs, four earned, over six innings.

Lotte’s Daiki Iwashita (4-2) allowed three runs over six innings to earn the win. Naoya Masuda earned his 10th save. Orix’s Yutaro Sugimoto hit a pair of solo home runs, his ninth and 10th, with eight coming against the Marines.

Starting pitchers

Pacific League

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

Ryota Takinaka (2-2, 6.27) vs Takahide Ikeda (2-4, 3.31)

Lions vs Hawks: MetLife Dome 5:45 pm, 4:45 am EDT

Zach Neal (0-1, 6.00) vs Shuta Ishikawa (2-2, 2.73)

Central League

BayStars vs Dragons: Yokohama Stadium 5:45 pm, 4:45 am EDT

Shota Imanaga (-) vs Yariel Rodriguez (0-0, 1.35)

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

Koyo Aoyagi (3-2, 2.00) vs Rick van den Hurk (-)

Active roster moves 5/19/2021

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 5/29

Central League

Activated

TigersP15Junya Nishi
TigersP37Masaki Oyokawa
TigersP48Yukiya Saitoh
TigersP69Daichi Ishii
TigersOF25Taiga Egoshi

Dectivated

GiantsP23Ryoma Nogami
TigersP28Taiki Ono
TigersP43Koki Moriya
TigersP64Kentaro Kuwahara
TigersIF33Kento Itohara
SwallowsP54Cy Sneed

Pacific League

Activated

LionsP15Tetsu Miyagawa
LionsP34Yasuo Sano

Dectivated

LionsP29Ryuya Ogawa
LionsP36Sho Ito
EaglesIF24Fumiya Kurokawa
FightersP19Chihiro Kaneko