Tag Archives: Munetaka Murakami

NPB news: July 18, 2023

Monday was a national holiday in Japan, Sea Day, so we had baseball ahead of the Wednesday and Thursday’s all-star games. Carter Stewart Jr. and Shumpeita Yamashita squared off in a duel of hard-throwing rookies with good curveballs, Tomoyuki Sugano didn’t make it out of the first inning in one of the year’s wildest games, and Hiroshima’s Hiroki Tokoda did it all on the mound and at bat

Monday’s games

Buffaloes 2, Hawks 1, 10 innings: At Fukuoka Dome, Shumpeita Yamashita (8-2) struck out eight over seven innings while allowing two singles and two walks. Carter Stewart Jr. (0-2) was nearly as impressive. He surrendered five hits, two on slow rollers, striking out seven and walking two. He pitched out of a fourth-inning jam – when right fielder Ukyo Shuto robbed Yuma Tongu of a two-out two-run double. A hard-hit double in the sixth, and a one-out walk set up all three Orix runs.

Leandro Cedeno crushes SoftBank for the second straight day.

Leandro Cedeno put a good swing on a decent fastball and knocked it into the right-field home run terrace for his fifth homer.

Shota Abe and Yuki Udagawa each contributed a scoreless inning of relief with Udagawa earning his second save.

The loss was SoftBank’s ninth straight, the Hawks’ longest since 1996, the year Hawks fans in Osaka – from where the franchise had moved seven years earlier – pelted the Daiei team bus with eggs. The Buffaloes go into the second half with a 3-1/2 game lead over the Marines.

Continue reading NPB news: July 18, 2023

NPB news: July 13, 2023

The Nippon Ham Fighters treated their fans to another ninth-inning game of “Dude, where’s my base runner?” Kenta Ishida did it all for DeNA. Yakult needs more than just Munetaka Murakami, while I need a better picture of Shogo Sakakura than the one I snapped Tuesday in case I needed it for my blog.

Thursday’s games

Eagles 3, Fighters 2: At Kitahiroshima Taxpayers Burden Field, Rakuten’s Takayuki Kishi and Nippon Ham’s Takayuki Kato each allowed a run in the first, and another on a home run to leave the game tied 2-2.  Chusei Mannami threw a runner out at the plate to keep the Eagles from scoring the go-ahead run in the seventh.

Chusei Mannami, armed and dangerous.

Daichi Suzuki doubled with one out in the ninth to set up Hiroto Kobukata‘s RBI single, and as it did in Chiba a couple of weeks ago, a golden opportunity in the ninth opportunity vanished.

Ariel Martinez‘s 10th homer made it 2-1 in the third, and Yukiya Ito tied it for the Eagles with a solo shot off Kato in the sixth. In the bottom of the ninth, the Fighters put two on with no outs against closer Yuki Matsui, when the runner on first got greedy. On a deep fly out to right, the lead runner advanced to third, and the trailing runner, Ryota Isobata was out at second for a double play. Matsui then struck out Mannami on a 3-2 pitch out of the zone.

The win was Rakuten’s eighth straight, while the Fighters have dropped seven in a row, including six straight by one run.

Continue reading NPB news: July 13, 2023