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NPB games, news of Aug. 20, 2019

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This is the start of Japanese baseball’s ugly “magic season.” It almost started after the all-star break, but the Yomiuri Giants prevented that by losing a bunch of games.

Tonight’s story from the Lions-Fighters game at MetLife Dome wasn’t about Shogo Akiyama but rather that the Lions’ win prevented the SoftBank Hawks’ magic number “lamp from being lit.”

Bad magic

The magic number in NPB is defined, not as the number of games one needs to clinch the pennant. It is that, of course, but that would be too simple for a nation where baseball is not really baseball unless it’s really, really anal retentive.

A Japanese magic number is much more. It is the number of games you have to win (or your nearest rival has to lose) for you to clinch the pennant, provided — and here’s the kicker — none of your wins come against that closest competitor. That last qualification decides when your magic number will appear. On occasion, teams needing to beat that team to win, will win a pennant without ever having a magic number at all.

The thing about the ugly magic season is that few teams are actually eliminated from contention in August, and nobody clinches, so newspapers waste a whole lot of copy inches writing about magic number lore, precedents and you name it. The earliest magic number in franchise history? You betcha.

And if the second-place team drops down in the standings, and is replaced by a team with more games against the leading pennant contender, then the magic number can vanish, prompting even more dumb stories from the nation’s ubiquitous sports dailies.

And now for something completely different: baseball.

Pacific League

Lions 4, Fighters 2

At MetLife Dome, on the day Shogo Akiyama qualified to file for international free agency this offseason, he singled in two runs to overturn a 1-0 deficit and give Seibu the lead in a win over Nippon Ham.

Zach Neal (7-1) only struck out one batter over six innings, but retired nine-straight batters at one stretch and six more at another to allow just a run on Haruki Nishikawa’s first-inning leadoff homer.

Bryan Rodriguez (6-4) started and went five innings, allowing two runs, one earned, as Nippon Ham seems to be giving Mizuki Hori a rest from his duties as opener.

Game highlights are HERE.

Marines 7, Eagles 3

At Zozo Marine Stadium, Ayumu Ishikawa (4-5) was his vintage self, striking out 11 over eight innings, while Takayuki Kishi (2-4) was misfiring, allowing three runs over 6-2/3 innings in Rakuten’s loss to Lotte.

Central League

Giants 2, Dragons 1

At Nagoya Dome, Yoshihiro Maru powered Yomiuri’s offense in the first inning, singling in Hayato Sakamoto with the game’s first run, moving to third on a fly out and scoring on a delayed double steal in a win over Chunichi.

Sakamoto’s first-inning double and Maru’s single represented the total of the Giants’ scoring opportunities through eight innings, the first seven against veteran lefty Yudai Ono (7-7). Giants starter Cristopher Mercedes (8-6) loaded the bases in the first with no outs, and left in the sixth with two on and no outs, but allowed just one run to earn the win.

Rubby De La Rosa earned his fifth save for the Giants after facing four batters in the ninth and striking out two.

Tigers 8, BayStars 0

At Kyocera Dome, DeNA walked Koji Chikamoto with two outs and two on in the fifth inning to load the bases, only for starter Haruhiro Hamaguchi (6-5) walked Seiya Kinami to open the scoring. Kosuke Fukudome followed with a three-run double to seal Hanshin’s win.

Tigers starter Koyo Aoyagi (6-8) struck out eight over 5-2/3 innings, including two back-to-back to escape a one-out, bases-loaded pickle in the second.

Jefry Marte iced the game in the seventh for Hanshin with a two-run home run.

Game highlights are HERE.

Carp 9, Swallows 8

At Mazda Stadium, Seiya Suzuki’s three-run ninth-inning homer off David Huff (1-3) tied it for Hiroshima, and Takumi Miyoshi singled in the winning run as Yakult blew a three-run ninth-inning lead.

Yakult appeared to have the game sown up after two-run, eighth-inning homers by Tetsuto Yamada and Yuhei Takai.

Baseball, Free, News

NPB games, news of Aug. 14, 2019

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Half of Wednesday’s six NPB games were one-side butt-kickings, and another became so in the late innings as the league leaders improved their position.

Do it your self, Japanese style

Today, we introduce one of the pennant stretch words one begins hearing in the second half “Jiryoku’V’shometsu.” This dire situation –自力V消滅 in Japanese — is the status of a team that cannot win the pennant without help from other teams. On Wednesday, the Hiroshima Carp and Rakuten Eagles, both received this dire prognosis of their pennant chances.

They can now win all their remaining games and still not win the pennant unless the Yomiuri Giants in the Carp’s Central League or the SoftBank Hawks in the Eagles’ Pacific League lose at least once to another team between now and the end of the season.

A lot is made in Japanese baseball of the idea of being able to steam to a goal under your own power and this is essential to the almost religious seriousness that accompanies NPB magic numbers, which we’ll get to at another time.

I’m still not certain why anybody cares about being able to reach a goal without help when every team in your league still has 50 games to play is important.

Pacific League

Marines 9, Fighters 4

At Tokyo Dome, Takashi Ogino homered on a 3-2 fastball that Kosei Yoshida (1-2) threw down the middle of the strike zone like he was aiming for a bulls-eye, and Lotte never trailed against Nippon Ham.

The 18-year-old legend from last summer’s summer national high school championships was making his third start and his first against PL teams. He threw mostly fastballs in the first inning and when he missed in the zone with them the Marines crushed them. A walk and a Daichi Suzuki two-run homer got the Marines off to a 3-0 jump start.

Ogino hit another home run in the second inning, while Leonys Martin hit his seventh in 18 career NPB games.

Marines rookie Kazuya Ojima (1-3) allowed a run over six innings

Game highlights are HERE.

Lions 8, Buffaloes 7

At MetLife Dome, Seibu came from behind twice, the second time on a two-run, eighth-inning Hotaka Yamakawa homer, his 34th, to beat Orix. A night after five batters were hit by pitches and three were ejected, only one batter, Yamakawa, was plunked.

Game highlights are HERE.

Hawks 12, Eagles 3

At Rakuten Seimei Park, Shota Takeda (4-3) allowed three runs, two earned, over eight innings to win as a starter for the first time since April 11, while leadoff man Shuhei Fukuda and Yurisbel Gracial combined for seven hits, four runs and four RBIs in SoftBank’s win over Rakuten.

New Eagle Ren Wada tied it 3-3 in the bottom of the first with a two-run home run, but Rakuten starter Takahiro Norimoto (2-3) allowed six runs, five earned, over four innings to take the loss.

Game highlights are HERE.

Central League

Giants 7, Carp 1

At Mazda Stadium, Tomoyuki Sugano (9-5), without a win since July 2, allowed a run over eight innings, and Yomiuri broke out of its scoring funk with him on the mound with six late runs in a win over Hiroshima.

Hayato Sakamoto doubled twice and walked, scored twice and drove in the Giants’ tie-breaking run in the seventh inning.

Swallows 15, BayStars 2

At Jingu Stadium, 39-year-old Masanori Ishikawa (6-5) allowed one hit and one walk over eight innings, while Yakult hammered Haruhiro Hamaguchi (6-4) for seven runs in the first inning.

Tetsuto Yamada opened the scoring with his 30th home run, while Wladimir Balentien hit his 25th and 19-year-old rookie Munetaka Murakami hit his 26th and took over the CL RBI lead.

Ishikawa had a no-hitter going until one out in the eighth when BayStars rookie Yukiya Ito hit his fourth homer in seven career games.

Tigers 6, Dragons 3

At Nagoya Dome, Hanshin rattled off six-straight hits after Daisuke Yamai (3-5) retired the first two batters in the fifth to overturn a 3-0 deficit in a win over Chunichi.

Tigers rookie Seiya Kinami sparked the fifth-inning rally with a pinch-hit single and homered in his next at-bat.