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NPB games, news of July 23, 2019

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There were a bunch of exciting games and big innings on Tuesday in NPB, with the SoftBank Hawks showing what they can do with the short fences at their ballpark — even with two of their three top home run hitters out of the lineup.

Central League

Giants 6, Swallows 5

At Kyocera Dome, pinch hitter Shnnosuke Shigenobu’s deep fly got over Yakult’s shallow outfield for a sayonara single that snapped Yomiuri’s four-game losing streak.

Both sides had ample chances to win this, missing a chance to deliver a knockout punch with the bases loaded. Giants starter Shun Yamaguchi was on track to win his 11th game of the season when the Giants bludgeoned David Buchanan for four runs in the first. Yamaguchi made the last out, grounding into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded.

Yamaguchi didn’t allow a hit until Wladimir Balentien homered to open the fifth. With a three-run lead in the eighth, Yamaguchi left with two outs and two on, but Rubby De La Rosa’s first pitch to Norichika Aoki cleared the outfield wall to tie it.

Giants reliever Scott Mathieson walked two of the four batters he faced in the ninth, and lefty Kota Nakagawa walked the bases loaded but got Tetsuto Yamada to fly out and give the Giants a chance to exhale.

With two on and no outs, the Swallows went into their throw-the-runner-out-at-the-plate-on-a-single shallow outfield defense, and Shigenobu launched a fly to the warning track that Aoki couldn’t haul in.

Game highlights are HERE.

Carp 6, Dragons 5, 10 innings

At Mazda Stadium, Xavier Batista had his second two-home run game since Saturday, his two-run shot tying it in the ninth before Geronimo Franzua pitched out of a 10th-inning jam and Tomohiro Abe won it for Hiroshima by leading off the home half of the 10th with a home run.

Batista, whose first homer was launched into the netting above the upper deck in left field and protects Hiroshima Station’s rail yard from such missiles, now has 23 home runs this season. Franzua (6-3) walked two batters in the 10th but put the lead runner out on the third-base line before he could score and then celebrated when he got a fly out to end the inning.

The talking heads blamed Dragons runner Yohei Oshima for his late start, but it was a poor bunt and also good fielding from Franzua that made the play.

Here’s a look at the Franzua celebration if you haven’t seen it.

BayStars 6, Tigers 6, 12 innings

At Koshien Stadium, Yoshitomo Tsustugo prevented DeNA from losing with a two-strike, two-out, ninth-inning RBI double off Hanshin closer Rafael Dolis that tied a wild game 6-6.

The Tigers welcomed back Kosuke Fukudome, who reached base three times, while Jefry Marte went 3-for-5 with his eighth home run, a result the Nikkan Sports attributed to the arrival of Yangervis Solarte.

The story includes Marte speaking about how happy he is to have another quality player on the team, but there is a kind of subtext to it, essentially saying Marte is playing hard because he has competition.

Pacific League

Fighters 5, Buffaloes 2

At Hotto Motto Field Kobe, former Orix ace Chihiro Kaneko looked at home in Kobe, allowing two walks over six hitless innings for Nippon Ham. Kaneko (4-5), who left Orix in a contract dispute over the winter, struck out four in a 92-pitch effort.

New Buffalo Steven Moya belted a two-run home run for the second-straight game to account for his team’s scoring. Tyler Eppler threw a scoreless inning of relief for the Buffaloes, while Stefen Romero returned to action, going 1-for-4 with a ninth-inning single in his first action since being sidelined with injury in June.

Game highlights are HERE.

Hawks 11, Marines 7

At Yafuoku Dome, Kenta Imamiya returned to action for the first time since June 20, and blasted a home run in his first at-bat. Nobuhiro Matsuda followed with his first of the night, and Alfredo Despaigne made it a hat-trick as SoftBank jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in its win over Lotte.

The Hawks, who lead all 12 teams in home runs with 124, hit five, while Seiya Inoue hit two, two-run shots for Lotte. Katsuya Kakunaka plated Brandon Laird with a home run, and Laird chipped in with his 27th.

Game highlights are HERE.

News

Messenger to return to States for treatment

Veteran Hanshin Tigers pitcher Randy Messenger will return to the United States this summer for treatment to deal with lower-body issues. The 37-year-old right-hander was Hanshin’s Opening Day starter for the fifth-straight season in March, and has had that honor six times since joining the team in 2010.

This season he is 3-7 with a 4.69 ERA.

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Points of order

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A little more than three months after Alex Ramirez told that he would not bat his pitchers eighth this year, as BayStars, he slipped lefty Haruhiro Hamaguchi into the No. 8 hole on Wednesday against Hiroshima’s Kris Johnson.

Ramirez told reporters before the game that the timing was right. Before the season, several journalists wrote that Ramirez’s policy of pitchers’ batting eighth had been severely criticized by Japan’s legion of former-player talking heads. Ironically, the move came in the wake of a move that still has the old farts reeling, moving Japan cleanup hitter Yoshitomo Tsutsugo into the No. 2 slot, a spot traditionally reserved in Japan for batters who could bunt and punch at the ball and rarely hit home runs.

On Tuesday night, former slugger Yoshiaki Kanemura, speaking on Fuji TV’s Pro Yakyu News, said, “Frankly, I think moving the Japan national team cleanup hitter into the No. 2 spot is a slap in the face.”

On Thursday, pitcher Shota Imanaga was in the eighth spot as DeNA began the day in second place, playing the third-place Chunichi Dragons.

From April 14, 2017 to Oct. 10, 2018, Ramirez had his starting pitcher bat eighth 252 times, starting with Joe Wieland, who had been a good-hitting infielder who chose pitching as a pro because he felt it would get him to the majors faster. After 15 more games with his pitchers batting ninth, Ramirez switched to the No. 8 spot until the end of the 2018 season.

Some speculate that finishing out of the playoffs for the first time since he took over the club in 2016 forced him to give up a very defensible choice. The choice is whether a position player can do more damage finishing off the heart of the order in the No. 8 spot or setting the table for the top of the order in the No. 9 spot.

Although Ramirez has been far and away the biggest recent user of pitchers in the eighth spot, he is far from a precedent setter. I have 29,811 digitized box scores in my data base in which the starting pitcher was in the batting order. Of those, roughly 95 percent batted ninth.

Shohei Ohtani, Japan’s most famous hitting pitcher, batted in the starting lineup 15 times, and never batted ninth. He is the only pitcher in my spotty records to bat first, cleanup or fifth — where he started five times. Ironically, the only spot, where I haven’t found a pitcher in the starting lineup is second.

Even with Ramirez’s eighth-place renaissance, neither 2017 nor 2018 stands as the season with the most starting pitchers batting out of the No. 9 spot. That honor goes to the first year I have records for. In 1958, NPB managers started their pitcher out of the No. 9 spot 248 times. The next year, that figure was down to 45. There were also 145 games started by a pitcher batting higher than ninth in 1970. I’ll know more if I ever get around to sorting through the digital records of the other eight or nine seasons I have floating around.

And just when it seemed that people would get tired of talking about Tsutsugo batting second, former BayStar Hitoshi Tamura discussed the issue during Thursday’s broadcast, saying that while it was OK for a DH league like the AL, putting a big hitter in the No. 2 spot when the pitcher is in the lineup is counter productive. Mind you, he didn’t mention that Ramirez is now using Maeda as a second leadoff man at the bottom of the BayStars lineup.