Tag Archives: Raidel Martinez

NPB news: July 19, 2022

We had baseball on Monday this week. I didn’t report on it but we had baseball. From those games, you should know: 1) the Yomiuri Giants became the first Japanese major league team to surrender grand slams in four consecutive games, 2) they still handed the Yakult Swallows their sixth straight loss and their eighth out of nine, 3) the Seibu Lions took over first place in the Pacific League, and 4) the Nippon Ham Fighters became the latest team to suffer a raft of infections, with manager Tsuyoshi Shinjo among those in quarantine.

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Tuesday, two days after Tokyo reported a coronavirus positivity rate of nearly 50 percent, I saw a line waiting to get into a free PCR testing site near the station next to mine. I’ve passed by there once or twice a week for the past four months, and this was the first time they didn’t have staff standing in front urging people to come in and get tested.

The big news Tuesday was not baseball, even Shohei Ohtani bowing out of pitching in the All-Star game, but the retirement of figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu. That had been looming since yesterday but after a hard Sunday, I kind of shutdown on Monday, so I’m just sort of restarting before my day job picks up again on Wednesday.

The pennant race projections are back for the first time in a while, so check it out, and if they hold up, people are going to have to check out the Pacific League’s tie-breaking format.

Tuesday’s games

Tigers 3, Carp 0: At Hiroshima Citizens Stadium, Aaron Wilkerson (5-4) pitched out of just one tough inning as he struck out seven over 5-2/3 innings. Fumiya Hojo drew a two-out walk in the second and scored the first run on a Ryutaro Umeno single off Carp starter Hiroki Tokoda (8-6).

Takamu Nakano singled to lead off the third and scored, before Hojo doubled in Teruaki Sato in the sixth. Suguru Iwazaki earned his 20th save as the Tigers edged past the Giants into fourth place.

The win was the Tigers’ second against the Carp this season, and their first in Hiroshima.

Continue reading NPB news: July 19, 2022

NPB news: July 16, 2022

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There were five games in Japan on Saturday, but the big news was once more public health.

A month and a half ago, the government pushed to allow non-resident foreign nationals to travel to Japan in order to give the economy a boost. In order to make that palatable, the government, without any reasoning based on research, said “don’t worry about wearing masks outdoors,” and so little by little people have stopped doing so, and more and more people are going unmasked indoors and on trains.

And low and behold, Japan reported more than 110,000 new positive test results for the first time on Saturday.

Three teams are currently struggling with infection-related absences, with most of the Yakult Swallows’ first team currently in isolation, while the Seibu Lions are slightly better off and the SoftBank Hawks are beginning to get most of their players back. This is going to be a tough pennant race for reasons that have nothing to do with baseball.

Saturday’s games

Fighters 1, Lions 0: At Sapporo Dome, the duel between Nippon Ham’s best pitcher, Naoyuki Uwasawa (6-5), and Seibu’s best, Kona Takahashi (6-7), went according to form, with the Fighters winning their seventh straight and keeping the Lions from taking over first place with the Hawks and Marines idled by rain in Chiba.

Continue reading NPB news: July 16, 2022