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NPB news: Oct. 19, 2023

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Wednesday’s Foreplay Series Games 2 both came down to four closers in decisive ninth innings, one game the climax of a back-and-forth free-for-all, and the other a pitchers’ duel.

Thursday’s games

Marines 6, Buffaloes 5: At Osaka UFO Dome, Orix’s bullpen plan couldn’t protect a one-run ninth-inning lead, as the miraculous Marines avoided facing an elimination game on Friday.

For the second straight night, Lotte went into the late innings with a lead, thanks to good speed and a smoke-and-mirrors offense that relied on poorly hit balls finding holes. Lotte’s C.C. Mercedes attacked the zone in the first only to be ambushed for three runs. He left, however, with a 4-3 lead over Orix southpaw Daiki Tajima.

Also, for a second straight night, Lotte’s slim lead didn’t last, as the big swinging Buffaloes came from behind on a two-run Leandro Cedeno homer in the eighth. But Taisuke Yamaoka, who moved to the bullpen during the summer, from where he recorded eight holds, three saves and one win in relief let Lotte scratch out two runs.

After giving Yoshinobu Yamamoto a good battering with a series of well-placed balls on Wednesday, the Marines again scored in the first. Takashi Ogino drew a four-pitch leadoff walk. Good base running put runners on second and third with one out on a Yudai Fujioka single, allowing Gregory Polanco to bring in the first run with a groundout.

The Buffaloes responded by taking big cuts whenever Mercedes ventured into the strike zone. Hiromi Oka‘s sliding catch robbed Orix of a first-inning leadoff single, but five straight well-hit balls – ok four well-hit balls and a hard-hit chopper — weren’t caught, put the Buffaloes in front and loaded the bases for a third run to score on a Marwin Gonzalez sacrifice fly.

The Marines recaptured the lead with three runs in the sixth, starting their rally with two-out walks by Shingo Ishikawa and Polanco. Oka used his speed to turn a flare to left into an RBI double, and a Hisanori Yasuda grounder found a hole for a two-run single.

The Buffaloes again found their way back. Ninety-six kilogram righty Keisuke Sawada hit Tomoya Mori with a two-out pitch, and Cedeno hit a navel-high 0-1 fastball just over the wall in left. Yuki Udagawa then blew away all three hitters he faced, striking out Polanco on five straight fastballs to end the Marines’ eighth.

Gonzalez opened Orix’s eighth with a leadoff double and with one out, PL batting champion Yuma Tongu pinch-hit, his first appearance since breaking a toe on Sept. 13. Tongu showed no rust but lacked Lotte’s lucky hole-finding Marines mojo, the bullet off his bat finding a glove instead for the third out.

A day after 39-year-old Yoshihisa Hirano became the oldest to record a save in the postseason since the stat was imported in 1975, the next member of manager Satoshi Nakajima’s revolving closer squad, Yamaoka took the mound in the ninth. He walked Katsuya Kakunaka on four pitches, pinch-runner Koshiro Wada stole second and scored when Yasuda’s smash to first took a hop past first baseman Keita Nakagawa for an RBI single. Pinch-runner Ryusei Ogawa was sacrificed to third and scored the go-ahead run on Koki Yamaguchi‘s fly to medium-deep center.

Marines closer Naoya Masuda survived a two-out walk to Mori by striking out Cedeno to end it, allowing Lotte to reduce the Buffaloes’ series lead to 2-1.

Continue reading NPB news: Oct. 19, 2023 →
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NPB news: Sept. 28, 2023

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On Thursday, the Central League’s contenders and pretenders had the day off to reflect on their sins, while two teams with PL postseason aspirations, the Lotte Marines and Rakuten Eagles were in action against teams with nothing to lose. The Marines sent strikeout machine Atsuki Taneichi against the Fighters in Hokkaido, where he went into battle essentially unarmed. Taneichi entered the game trailing Yoshinobu Yamamoto by five, 158-153 and his 10.35 strikeouts per nine innings is second only to teammate Roki Sasaki‘s 13.35.

Late on Wednesday night, we learned 40-year-old Nobuhiro Matsuda will wrap up his career at season’s end having played 11 games so far for the Yomiuri Giants after 17 for the SoftBank Hawks, who made him a premium pre-draft signing out of Asia University in 2005.

A day after Lotte failed to deactivate a player for COVID, they were back on board that train, deactivating Taiga Hirasawa. On a positive note, Hiromi Oka and Takashi Ogino returned from brief COVID deactivations.

Thursday’s games

Marines 9, Fighters 2: At Kitahiroshima Taxpayers Burden Field, Atsuki Taneichi faced Nippon Ham without his best pitch, and without having to be on the lookout for that splitter, the Fighters batters beat the daylights out of him. While Haruka Nemoto (3-0) struck out seven while allowing a run over six innings in his best start of the season, Nemoto threw three splitters in the early innings and then they disappeared.

With two outs and none on in the fourth:

  • Taiki Narama lashed a first-pitch hanging two-seamer for a single
  • Yua Tamaya put a good swing on a 1-0 slider away and pulled it on the ground past first.
  • Another good slider, 3-2 away, and Chusei Mannami got enough on it to get it past short.
  • A hanging 2-2 slider away, and Ryohei Hosokawa poked it between third and short.
  • Kotaro Kiyomiya put a good swing on a good 1-2 fastball low in the zone and drilled it over second.
  • A 3-0 fastball down the pipe and Ariel Martinez doesn’t try to do too much with it, just lashes it to left. It’s 7-1 Fighters and Taneichi’s gone and the game’s over.

Taneichi recorded four strikeouts, leaving him one back of Yamamoto, who can now cruise to his third straight PL strikeout title.

Eagles 9, Buffaloes 5: At Miyagi Stadium, Rakuten twice came from behind to move from fourth place to third, a half-game ahead of Lotte with much of the heavy lifting done by reliever Seiryu Uchi, who came in the third for Rakuten and faced nine batters over three innings, to give the Eagles space to catch up.

Tomoya Noguchi‘s three-run second-inning homer put the Buffaloes in the driver’s seat in Sendai, but Kohei Azuma, who was solid in his previous four starts, surrendered four runs over five innings. Daichi Suzuki hit a solo homer for the Eagles in the bottom of the second. Hideto Asamura tied it with an RBI single to cap a two-run third-inning rally.

Hiroto Kobukata who’d reached base his first two times but been forced out, walked with one out in the fifth and scored the go-ahead run on a Yuya Ogo double before the Buffaloes came from behind. Marwin Gonzalez‘s two-out sixth-inning single tied it but Ogo threw a runner out at the plate to end the inning. Shuhei Fukuda, who’d made the out at the plate, made up for that by singling in the go-ahead run in the seventh.

Orix’s Shota Abe, in to protect a one-run eighth-inning lead, instead got hammered, allowing five runners to reach, all of whom scored, with both of his outs coming on sac flies.

Matsuda to hang ’em up

Nobuhiro Matsuda is a guy who belongs on a baseball field. For 18 years, he’s embodied the game, as an energetic and dynamic leader. He won eight Pacific League Golden Glove Awards at third base, and surprisingly for a guy who hit 301 career home runs, just one Best Nine – because in many of his better seasons he had the misfortune of playing the same position as six-time PL home run champ Takeya Nakamura.

Matsuda was a distinctive figure. Unafraid to be flamboyant, he would shout at the top of his lungs in practice when doing toss batting, and would hop on one foot when he swung and missed at a pitch.

He had a chance to play in MLB as a utility player, only to have a lawyer friend of his wife’s poison his MLB agent’s negotiations by talking with the San Diego Padres’ people in Fukuoka, and then representing Matsuda in his huge multiyear deal in December 2015 to remain with the Hawks. It has been a ton of fun watching him play baseball.