Program Notes: News from Tuesday is late as my day job went into extra innings and I needed some time with the trainer afterward.
Tuesday saw more of last week’s drama, so cue the theme from “Rawide,”—rolling, rolling, rolling, and get your big home run bat flips ready for you know who. We also had a game called on account of darkness, while Freddy Galvis did his grand slam thing again.
On Saturday in Japan, Orix’s Elmore Leonard gang stole the Lions lunch money, while Munetaka Murakami continues to swing for the fences and beyond.
The home run was Murakami’s 148th, moving him past Kazuhiro Kiyohara on the list of career home runs by a 22-year-old. He is now second on the list and 30 behind Kiyohara for career homers by a 23-year-old, and third behind Kiyohara (212) and Sadaharu Oh (180) for career homers by a 24-year-old.
If you want a refresher course on every overgeneralization attributed to Japanese baseball, have a listen to Ben Verlander does Japanese baseball. Verlander is currently in Japan marveling at the game we know and love, and I guess it’s kind of fun to remember what it was like the first time we saw it.
Let’s get to the games shall we?
Buffaloes 6, Lions 0: At Seibu Dome, the Lions got run over by the 8:20 to Yuma, as the Elmore Leonard gang, Yuma Mune and Yuma Tongu, rode again to back the eight shutdown innings from Hiroya Miyagi (8-6), lifting the defending champs to within 1-1/2 games of the first-place Lions.
Continue reading NPB news: Aug. 20, 2022