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NPB wrap 5-29-21

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Interleague Day 5 – Respect for the elderly

Sapporo Dome held a respect for the elderly promotion on Saturday giving up four hits to players 40 and over, and 44-year-old Kosuke Fukudome, Nippon Professional Basesball’s oldest active player, cashed in with three singles and a double, two RBIs. He left after his eighth-inning leadoff single put the go-ahead runner on ahead of Dayan Viciedo, who broke the tie with an RBI double.

So show Kosuke some respect. He’s earned it.

On Sunday, we’ll get to see if the Yomiuri Giants have any similar promotions planned for when they face 40-year-old Tsuyoshi Wada in Fukuoka. The Giants have now lost 11 straight official games to the Hawks, including all eight from the 2019 and 2020 Japan Series.

The losing streak started with a loss to Wada at Tokyo Dome on June 23, 2019, in the finale of a three-game series in which the Giants won the middle game. Wada started and won Game 4 of the 2019 series and started Game 4 last autumn, but left after allowing a run over two innings in SoftBank’s 4-1 clincher in Fukuoka. He’s 6-3 against them over his career. His last loss to them was on May 28, 2009.

Dragons 7, Fighters 4

At Sapporo Dome, the Fighters came back to tie it 4-4 on a two-out two-run Wang Po-jung pinch double, but Bryan Rodriguez couldn’t hold the line in the eighth, after Fukudome’s leadoff single, he surrendered an RBI double to Dayan Viciedo. Takuya Kinoshita, who put Chunichi ahead 3-2 in the fifth with his sixth home run, was intentionally walked and scored on Daiki Mitsumata’s two-run double.

Drew VerHagen started for Nippon Ham and allowed four runs over six-plus innings on eight hits and a walk while striking out five.

Eagles 1 BayStars 1

At Sendai’s Rakuten Seimei Park, Masahiro Tanaka was extremely sharp over eight innings, but one of his few mistakes cost him, when he missed down the pipe to Tyler Austin, who teed off on it to blast his eighth home run and give DeNA a 1-0, sixth-inning lead. Tanaka allowed five hits and hit a batter while striking out six. 

Lefty Haruhiro Hamaguchi twice pitched out of tight spots, two on with no outs in the first and a no-out bases-loaded can of worms in the fourth to allow a run over six-plus innings. He left after allowing a leadoff single in the seventh, a runner the bullpen allowed to score.

Eagles closer Yuki Matsui pitched out of a no-out bases-loaded jam in the ninth, while former DeNA closer pitched a scoreless ninth against the bottom of the Eagles order to seal the tie.

Marines 7, Carp 3

At Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium, Adeiny Hechavarria went 3-for-5 with a homer and five RBIs, while Lotte leadoff man Takashi Ogino homered, walked twice, doubled and singled as the Marines overran Hiroshima.

Manabu Mima (3-2) allowed two runs over six innings, while Frank Herrmann surrendered another in the seventh, but the last seven Carp hitters bit the dust, while Hechavarria made mincemeat of the visitors’ bullpen.

Swallows 7, Buffaloes 4

At Osaka’s Kyocera Dome, Yakult’s Yasuhiro Ogawa (5-1) allowed three runs over seven innings – on a three-run seventh-inning Steven Moya pinch-hit home run, Jose Osuna doubled, singled, homered and drove in three runs, and Scott McGough struck out the side in the ninth for his fifth save. Domingo Santana also homered and singled for the Swallows.

Hawks 8, Giants 3

At Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome, Yuya Hasegawa delivered a rare performance in a rare start for SoftBank. He hit two of the Hawks’ five home runs, one that tied the game 2-2 in the second and a three-run shot that broke the game open and chased Angel Sanchez (4-3) in the fifth inning. Hasegawa also made a terrific catch in left on a foul ball over the railing to end the Giants’ fifth with a man on.

Nick Martinez (4-1) allowed three runs over seven innings, in which he struck out 10 and walked one. He gave up Zelous Wheeler’s seventh home run, a two-run shot in the first, and allowed another run on four straight one-out singles in the sixth.

Yuki Yangita hit his 12th homer to start the Hawks’ second-inning fightback, while catcher Takuya Kai broke the 2-2 tie with a two-run fourth-inning home run, his fifth, and Nobuhiro Matsuda completed the carnage in the sixth with a solo shot that was his sixth of the season.

Lions 1, tigers 0

At MetLife Dome, Seibu’s Hotaka Yamakawa hit his fifth home run and Tatsuya Imai (3-2) outdueled rookie Masashi Ito (3-2). Imai, whose professional existence has been plagued by walks, struck out six without a walk, while allowing three hits over 5-1/3 innings, when he left the game after a batted ball struck him on the left hand.

Tetsu Miyagawa retired the first three batters he faced before Hanshin loaded the bases in the seventh on a single and two two-out walks. Rookie Teruaki Sato, who blasted three home runs the night before, went down swinging for the second out, and veteran Yoshio Itoi struck out pinch-hitting to end the inning.

A night after Reed Garrett blew a two-run ninth-inning lead, Kaima Taira came into hold the lead in the ninth. After a leadoff walk and a stolen base, Taira struck out Sato and retired Mel Rojas Jr. on a fly out against the foul netting, that Tigers manager Akihiro Yano argued long after the video replay upheld the ruling.

Starting pitchers

Interleague

Fighters vs Dragons: Sapporo Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Robbie Erlin (1-0, 3.60) vs Koji Fukutani (2-4, 3.94)

Eagles vs BayStars: Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi 1 pm, 12 midnight EDT

Takahisa Hayakawa (6-2, 3.28) vs Shota Imanaga (0-1, 12.46)

Lions vs Tigers: MetLife Dome 1 pm, 12 midnight EDT

Katsunori Hirai (3-2, 4.37) vs Shoki Murakami (-)

Marines vs Carp: Zozo Marine Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Kazuya Ojima (1-2, 4.81) vs Dovydas Neverauskas (-)

Buffaloes vs Swallows: Kyocera Dome (Osaka) 1 pm, 12 midnight EDT

Hirotoshi Masui (1-4, 4.94) vs Albert Suarez (2-2, 3.89)

Hawks vs Giants: PayPay Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Tsuyoshi Wada (3-2, 4.53) vs Shosei Togo (4-2, 3.94)

Active roster moves 5/29/2021

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 6/8

Central League

Activated

CarpP65Shogo Tamamura
SwallowsP68Kohei Miyadai

Dectivated

CarpP41Takuya Yasaki
SwallowsP15Rick van den Hurk

Pacific League

Activated

LionsP34Yasuo Sano
LionsC37Sena Tsuge
LionsOF53Aito Takeda
LionsOF58Masato Kumashiro
EaglesP53Hosei Takata

Dectivated

LionsC78Masato Saito
LionsIF31Ryusei Sato
LionsOF46Shohei Suzuki
EaglesP64Hiroyuki Fukuyama
BuffaloesP21Daichi Takeyasu
Baseball, Free, News

NPB wrap 5-22-21

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Saturday is Tanaka day

Not that it’s been that big a story every week. He’s pitching really well, being crafty with his fastball, but still not settled in against teams that are really pumped to solve him.

It was also a big day for Nick Martinez and Yuki Yanagita of the Hawks, while Cory Spangenberg had a magical day for the Lions, Brandon Laird hit homered for his third straight game, Scott McGough made a hell of a tough save, while Angel Sanchez and Zelous Wheeler helped the Giants earn a win. So let’s roll.

Marines 3, Eagles 1

At Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium, Lotte’s Manabu Mima outpitched his former teammate Masahiro Tanaka even though both starter had similar pitching lines with two walks and a run over seven innings. Mima missed barrels from start to finish, while the Marines did a good job on Tanaka’s few mistakes but were denied more runs through a handful of big plays from the Rakuten Eagles defense.

Tanaka continued to feel his way around pitch combinations, this time throwing mostly sliders, which has been his best pitch so far. Once again, Eagles pitching coach Shinjiro Koyama praised Tanaka’s lively fastball, and it was on occasion. But much of the game was about the Marines sitting on sliders, laying off most of those he threw out of the zone and smashing the ones Tanaka missed with.

In addition to Mima, who made the win possible, second baseman and captain Shogo Nakamura had three hits, including an RBI double in the third and an eighth-inning leadoff home run against reliever Hiroyuki Fukuyama (0-2). Brandon Laird followed Nakamura’s second homer with his 10th and his third in three games.

Leonys Martin walked and Nakamura singled in the first but both were stranded, but the tag team did the job in the third. Martin singled and took off for second on a run-and-hit and scored on Nakamura’s double.

The Eagles’ lone run against Mima came after Adeiny Rodriguez was ridiculed for making a reasonable play that didn’t work out on a grounder to short with a runner on second. This is a tricky play in Japan, and we heard a few different opinions of the optimal choices and odds. I wrote about this in detail, with a data-driven explanation of how often runners and fielders should take the third-base gamble.

Lions 8, Fighters 1

At MetLife Dome, Nippon Ham’s Drew VerHagen (1-4) held Seibu in check for four innings before two walks and Cory Spangenberg happened. After two swinging strikes and five fouls – including a dribbler VerHagen let roll foul that Spangenberg was going to beat out for a base hit, Spangenberg took a center-cut fastball to left for an opposite-field homer.

The Lions scored twice more in the inning and that was the ballgame.

Wataru Matsumoto (4-3) allowed eight hits and a walk, but stranded eight and allowed one run on Haruki Nishikawa’s third home run.

Hawks 7, Buffaloes 2

At Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome, it was the Nick and Gita show for the SoftBank Hawks as

Nick Martinez (3-1) lowered his ERA as a SoftBank Hawk to 1.44 with nine strikeouts over seven scoreless innings, and Yuki Yanagita hit his ninth home run, a three-run first-inning monster off Daiki Tajima (2-2) and singled in another run in the third.

Gita doing Gita stuff

Nick of time

The Gita and Nick postgame show

Swallows 1, BayStars 0

broke out. Yakult’s Yasuhiro Ogawa (4-1) allowed three singles and a walk over eight innings, Yasutaka Shiomi hit a solo homer off DeNA’s Haruhiro Hamaguchi (2-4), and Scott McGough worked around a leadoff double and a WILD pitch to record three outs with the tying run at third and earn his second save. Edwin Escobar worked a 1-2-3 eighth for the BayStars. Shiomi’s homer was his second.

Giants 5, Dragons 4

At Nagoya’s Vantelin Dome, Yomiuri’s Angel Sanchez (4-2) allowed two runs over seven innings and for the second straight game Giants manager Tatsunori Hara used three pitchers in the ninth in addition to the two who worked the eighth to close it out.

Kazuma Okamoto did most of the damage off Yariel Rodriguez (0-1) with his 12th home run, a three-run third-inning shot that moved him into a tie for the league lead with Yakult’s Munetaka Murakami and one back of Lotte’s Leonys Martin for the most in Japan.

Zelous Wheeler doubled twice for the Giants, scoring on Okamoto’s homer and driving in a run in the sixth, while Dayan Viciedo drove in three of Chunichi’s runs.

Starting pitchers

Pacific League

Lions vs Fighters: MetLife Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Katsunori Hirai (3-1, 3.83) vs Robbie Erlin (0-0, 7.20)

Marines vs Eagles: Zozo Marine Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Kazuya Ojima (1-1, 4.24) vs Takahisa Hayakawa (5-2, 2.82)

Hawks vs Buffaloes: PayPay Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Tsuyoshi Wada (2-2, 5.03) vs Sachiya Yamasaki (1-4, 3.72)

Central League

Swallows vs BayStars: Jingu Stadium 5:30 pm, 4:30 am EDT

Albert Suarez (1-2, 4.40) vs Shota Imanaga (-)

Dragons vs Giants: Vantelin Dome (Nagoya) 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Koji Fukutani (1-4, 4.31) vs Nobutaka Imamura (2-1, 2.31)

Active roster moves 5/22/2021

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 6/1

Central League

Activated

None

Dectivated

None

Pacific League

Activated

MarinesP60Rikuto Yokoyama
MarinesP64Yuta Omine

Dectivated

MarinesP58Tokito Kawamura
MarinesP69Hideto Doi