On Saturday in Japan, the media was wetting themselves over slugger Munetaka Murakami‘s acting like a high school player, opposing offenses are not scoring against Hiroshima’s Daichi Osera, while the Seibu Lions, who haven’t been scoring against anyone, finally put a non-zero up on the scoreboard.
It’s mostly been a blog-free week, since I was off Tuesday and Friday, so a little news roundup is in order. To catch up, the Nippon Ham Fighters didn’t win interleague, but Shun Mizutani, who so far has been the star of last year’s second-chance draft, was named interleague MVP.
The Yakult Swallows, who snapped a 14-year pennant drought in 2015 thanks to some long-term investments in their imports, are playing that game again.
But first the games:
Saturday’s games:
Carp 3, Dragons 1: At Nagoya Dome, Daichi Osera (4-0) allowed three singles, a walk and hit a batter while striking out five over eight innings. Sotaro Shimauchi worked a 1-2-3 eighth and Ryoji Kuribayashi allowed a run on a pair of one-out walks and a throwing error but held on for his 20th save. Osera has not allowed a run in 29 consecutive innings, since SoftBank scored an unearned run against him on May 31.
Shota Suekane‘s two-run homer opened the scoring against Humberto Mejia (3-5) in the fourth inning. Mejia struck out six over five innings to take the loss. Ryosuke Kikuchi doubled in the ninth and scored an insurance run on a Masaya Yano single.
Lions 4, Buffaloes 2: At Osaka UFO Dome, Chihiro Sumida (5-5) struck out eight over seven innings without issuing a walk and got the greatest gift the Lions can give to one of their pitchers, run support, as Seibu snapped a five-game losing streak.
Seibu’s Manaya Nishikawa doubled to open the game, was sacrificed to third and scored on Takumi Kuriyama‘s sacrifice fly against 19-year-old Kyosuke Saito (1-1) , ending Seibu’s franchise-worst 32-inning scoreless streak. Third-inning walks by Nishikawa and Kuriyama set the table for Junichiro Kishi‘s fifth home run, and a 4-0 Seibu lead. The Buffaloes got to Sumida for a run in the fourth, set up by a Ryoma Nishikawa double and a Kotaro Kurebayashi single. The Buffaloes made it a two-run game in the eighth on Nishikawa’s third homer off Wataru Matsumoto.
Luis Perdomo, who pitched in 53 games last season for Lotte, was signed by Orix on Wednesday and retired all three batters he faced in his Buffaloes debut.
Fighters 5, Eagles 2: At Kitahiroshima Taxpayers Burden Field, Hiromi Ito (6-1) stranded two runners in Rakuten’s two-run first and pitched out of a fourth-inning pickle as Nippon Ham snapped a five game winless streak. Four relievers picked up the slack over the final three innings with Seigi Tanaka striking out two in the ninth for his 11th save.
Kazuki Murabayashi drew first blood, singling, stealing second and scoring on a Daichi Suzuki single before Hideto Asamura‘s RBI double capped the two-run inning. Franmil Reyes tripled to open the Fighters’ two-run second, scoring on Chusei Mannami‘s sac fly off former Fighter Cody Ponce (3-5), while Yua Tamiya was hit by a pitch and scored on a Koku Fukuda single. Reyes’ third hit, a two-out double scored Kotaro Kiyomiya to break the tie in the fifth.
Fukuda doubled in a run in the sixth, and Yuya Gunji singled in one more to complete the scoring, with all five runs charged to Ponce.
BayStars 5, Tigers 2: At Koshien Stadium, Katsuki Azuma (6-0) allowed three singles, a walk and a hit batsman over eight innings, while Tyler Austin homered and drove in four as DeNA snapped Hanshin’s three-game win streak.
Yusuke Oyama led off the Tigers’ second with his first home run since he hit two on May 3, but a one-out third-inning error on third baseman Ryo Watanabe, the Tigers’ 42nd of the season, tying them with DeNA for most in Japan, allowed Austin to hit a two-run homer off Masashi Ito (3-3), his eighth. Oyama singled in Takumu Nakano in the fourth to make it a one-run game, but Shugo Maki doubled and scored in the sixth on a Keita Sano single before the BayStars got into the Hanshin bullpen in the seventh on a Ryuki Watarai double and an Austin single.
DeNA closer Kohei Morihara worked the ninth for his 16th save, while Hanshin committed two more errors to take the NPB lead with 44 to DeNA’s 43.
“It seems like we make an error on every groundball, but I think some of that is the scorers’ doing,” Tigers manager Akinobu Okada said.
Hawks 3, Marines 1: At Fukuoka “Your company’s name can go here” Dome, Lotte’s Atsuki Taneichi (4-4) got a first-inning lead and dominated SoftBank for six innings but it was not enough.
Hiromi Oka doubled and scored on Toshiya Sato’s two-out first-inning single off Ryosuke Otsu (5-3) who left a runner in scoring position in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings before SoftBank finally solved Taneichi in the seventh. A hit batsman, a Kensuke Kondo double and a Tatsuru Yanagimachi sac fly tied it.
Taneichi made quick work of the first two Hawks on four pitches in the eighth, but his second pitch to Ukyo Shuto reached the dome’s home run terrace for his second homer of the year and 2-1 SoftBank lead before back-to-back doubles from Kenta Imamiya and Ryoya Kurihara completed the scoring.
Taneichi and Otsu each struck out nine over eight innings.
Swallows 3, Giants 0: At Tokyo Ugly Dome, Yomiuri’s Foster Griffin outlasted Cy Sneed in their scoreless pitcher’s duel, working seven to Sneed’s six, before Yakult scored three times after two were out in the eighth against the bullpen, when the heavy lifting was done by two other players’ extra-base hits, although one wouldn’t know it considering how excited everyone was to see Munetaka Murakami diving into first-base head first, as he’s been doing recently.
Against lefty Yuhei Takahashi, Hideki Nagaoka drove a triple off the wall in right and scored when Murakami beat out an infield single with that head-first slide. Kyle Keller came in and his second pitch landed among the photographers under the scoreboard on Domingo Santana‘s 11th home run.
Three Swallows relievers turned in scoreless innings with former Giant Kazuto Taguchi recording his sixth save.
Afterward, Giants manager Shinnosuke Abe, who throws early batting practice, said “One would think those guys who aren’t hitting should show up. I’ll throw to them all they want.”
Mizutani shows off in interleague
Shun Mizutani, a 23-year-old outfielder rescued from the SoftBank Hawks’ roster in last year’s second-chance draft by the Nippon Ham Fighters, won the interleague MVP award with a .438 batting average, the highest ever recorded. Currently hitting .381 and slugging .577, Mizutani got a break from baseball Friday. In the Western League, Mizutani had a couple of strong seasons as an 18- and 19-year-old before a 2022 season in which he suffered a shoulder injury.
Still his age-19 2019 season was comparable to those put up by players like Kenji Jojima, Yuki Yoshimura, Kenta Kurihara and Daisuke Motoki, which is a fairly good group to be in.
Swallows dig deep again
In December 2012, the Yakult Swallows, tired of watching their successful imports play out their contracts and sign with rival teams, offered long-term contracts to Wladimir Balentien, Lastings Milledge and Tony Barnette. Two of those panned out big time, and were a big factor in Yakult winning the 2015 CL pennant.
The Swallows were at it again this week, agreeing to terms with first baseman Jose Osuna and outfielder Domingo Santana on three-year contracts that would keep them with the team through 2027. Santana’s is reported as being worth a total of $9 million and Osuna’s at $8.25 million with additional incentives.
Both players are in their fourth season with the Swallows and were instrumental in Yakult’s 2001 and 2002 championships.
“They are doing well,” said Swallows super scout Michael Okumura, who is also their international director. “The timing was good and the contracts are good.”
