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NPB wrap 3-31-21

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Eagles barely hold off Marines

At Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium, it took a lucky break and a good catch to do it, but the Rakuten Eagles survived a battle with the still winless Lotte Marines, beating them 2-1 on Wednesday afternoon.

Trailing by a 2-1 in the bottom of the seventh after Tsuyoshi Sugano’s RBI double off Eagles starter Takahiro Norimoto, the Marines had runners on second and third with one out. With the infield way in, Katsuya Kakunaka ripped a fat 2-2 pitch from rookie lefty Yuki Watanabe to second baseman Hideto Asamura, who lost his footing making the catch.

The Marines again put two men in scoring position with one out in the eighth after a Leonys Martin’s double off former San Diego Padre Kazuhisa Makita. This time the Eagles were saved by left fielder Atsuki Muto. Having just entered as a defensive replacement, the 19-year-old rookie made a good running catch on a shallow sinking liner to prevent the tying run from scoring.

In the ninth inning, it was closer Yuki Matsui’s turn to sweat. With one out and the tying runner on second, right fielder Kazuki Tanaka made a good catch against the right-field fence, allowing the lefty to get out of the inning and earn his first save.

Norimoto (1-0) allowed a run on three walks and four hits. He helped himself by starting a double play, allowing him to stay even with Marines right-hander Daiki Iwashita (0-1), who allowed just three runners through five innings. The Eagles took the lead in the sixth when Iwashita walked the bases loaded and Eigoro Mogi singled in both runs.

At Osaka’s Kyocera Dome, the Orix Buffaloes lit up Kotaro Otake (0-1) for seven runs over three innings and got five scoreless innings from 36-year-old former closer Hirotoshi Masui (1-0) to beat the previously undefeated SoftBank Hawks 7-2.

At Sapporo Dome, Taiwan’s Wu Nien-ting hit his first pro home run off Hiromi Ito as the Nippon Ham Fighters’ top draft pick last year made his pro debut against the Seibu Lions in a 1-1 tie.

At Yokohama Stadium, the virus-stricken Yakult Swallows beat the DeNA BayStars 5-3 in the Central League as young hitters from both teams took center stage. Yasutaka Shiomi singled twice and drove in three for the Swallows, who also got a two-run homer from slugger Munetaka Murakami.

Right-hander Taisei Irie (0-1), the BayStars’ top pick in last year’s draft, allowed all five runs over five innings in his debut, while the club’s second pick, infielder Shugo Maki, blasted a three-run homer that drove starter Hirotoshi Takanashi from the game.

Scott McGough and three other relievers worked one inning apiece of perfect relief as the Swallows kept the BayStars winless under new manager Daisuke Miura.

At Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium, new import Kevin Cron broke a fifth-inning tie with his first homer in Japan and his second hit of the game as the Hiroshima Carp beat the Hanshin Tigers 4-2.

Jerry Sands singled in a run for the Tigers and Jefry Marte had two hits.

Carp starter Hiroki Tokoda (1-0) allowed two runs over six innings and doubled in a run, while rookie closer Ryoji Kuribayashi worked a 1-2-3 ninth to record his third save.

At Nagoya’s Vantelin Dome, the Chunichi Dragons scored four runs off Shoichi Ino (0-1), making his first start for the Yomiuri Giants, and five relievers held the visitors scoreless over the final 5-2/3 innings in a 5-3 win. The loss was the Giants’ first of the season after two wins and two ties.

The Giants’ Zelous Wheeler, batting second again, opened the scoring in the first with a two-run homer. Dayan Viciedo had two hits for the Dragons, while the team’s 2018 top draft pick, the extremely well-hyped Akira Neo, doubled in the go-ahead run in the second.

Yakult has coronavirus issues

A day after their first win of the season, the Yakult Swallows deactivated six players, including Norichika Aoki and Tetsuto Yamada on Wednesday due to concerns over potential coronavirus infections after No. 2 catcher Akihisa Nishida and a fifth member of the Central League club’s staff tested positive.

Sponichi Annex reported that after a fourth member of the team’s staff tested positive on Tuesday, the team was screened again, and the tests for a 20-year-old staff member and Nishida came back positive. In addition to Nishida, Yamada, Aoki, two-time batting champion Seiichi Uchida, shortstop Naomichi Nishiura and pitcher Albert Suarez were all sent home as a precaution.

Meanwhile, the Pacific League’s Seibu Lions have deactivated cleanup hitter and first baseman Hotaka Yamakawa. The 2018 MVP miss-stepped on the first-base bag on Tuesday as he circled the bases on a home run against the Nippon Ham Fighters at Sapporo Dome.

Starting pitchers

Pacific League

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

Fumiya Motomae (-) vs Ryota Takinaka (2-1, 3.40)

Buffaloes vs Hawks: Kyocera Dome (Osaka) 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Yoshinobu Yamamoto (0-1, 1.29) vs Shota Takeda (2-2, 6.48)

Central League

BayStars vs Swallows: Yokohama Stadium 5:45 pm, 4:45 am EDT

Taiga Kamichatani (2-3, 4.12) vs Taichi Yamano (-)

Dragons vs Giants: Vantelin Dome (Nagoya) 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Takahiro Matsuba (3-7, 4.05) vs Yuki Takahashi (1-3, 4.30)

Carp vs Tigers: Mazda Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Yuta Nakamura (3-4, 2.31) vs Takumi Akiyama (11-3, 2.89)

Active roster moves 3/31/2021

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 4/10, except for those marked with an asterisk as coronavirus protocol deactivations. These players can be reactivated as soon as they are declared virus free.

Central League

Activated

GiantsP12Rubby De La Rosa
GiantsP21Shoichi Ino
TigersP27Masashi Ito
DragonsP41Akiyoshi Katsuno
BayStarsP22Taisei Irie
CarpP28Hiroki Tokoda
CarpIF6Tomohiro Abe
SwallowsP14Hirotoshi Takanashi*
SwallowsC45Motohiro Shima*
SwallowsIF58Hideki Nagaoka*
SwallowsIF60Ryusei Takeoka*
SwallowsIF65Yu Matsumoto*

Dectivated

GiantsP17Kan Otake
TigersOF25Taiga Egoshi
CarpIF0Takashi Uemoto
SwallowsP43Albert Suarez*
SwallowsC30Akihisa Nishida*
SwallowsIF1Tetsuto Yamada*
SwallowsIF3Naomichi Nishiura*
SwallowsIF7Seiichi Uchikawa*
SwallowsOF23Norichika Aoki*

Pacific League

Activated

HawksP10Kotaro Otake
MarinesP46Daiki Iwashita
LionsP11Tatsuya Imai
LionsIF31Ryusei Sato
LionsIF39Wu Nien-ting
EaglesP14Takahiro Norimoto
FightersP17Hiromi Ito
BuffaloesP17Hirotoshi Masui

Dectivated

LionsIF3Hotaka Yamakawa
LionsOF1Takumi Kuriyama
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NPB 2020 Oct. 20

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Tuesday’s games

CL

PL

Other news

Norimoto-Yamamoto duel as advertised

Torai Fushimi hit a game-tying home run in the ninth inning off Rakuten Eagles closer Alan Busenitz as the Orix Buffaloes salvaged a 2-2 10-inning tie at Sendai’s Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi in which the teams’ two aces delivered.

Fushimi’s home run took Yoshinobu Yamamoto off the hook for the loss after he allowed two runs on five hits and a walk while striking out 10 over seven innings.

The Eagles took a 2-1 lead after sixth-inning singles by Ginji Akaminai and rookie Hiroto Kobukata. Akaminai smacked a mistake from Yamamoto through the infield, and Kobukata, one of the few Eagles to get quality swings off the Buffaloes’ ace, smoked a liner to left. Hideto Asamura’s miss-hit ball off the end of his bat just fell for a two-run double.

Right fielder Yuya Oda, who came within a hair of ending the inning on that fly, cut down Asamura for the final out at the plate.

Norimoto pitched out of a couple of early pickles, and was cruising until Steven Moya crushed a curveball for his ninth home run with two outs in the sixth, giving Yamamoto a 1-0 lead. The right-hander allowed five hits and a walk while striking out six over seven innings.

Eagles lefty Yuki Matsui walked two in the eighth but ended the inning by overpowering Moya with a fastball for a swinging strikeout after Orix wasted one out sacrificing in an attempt to tie it on the road.

Fushimi led off the top of the ninth by hammering a straight fastball down the pipe nearly to the Ferris wheel behind the left-field seating for his sixth home run.

Tyler Higgins worked a scoreless ninth for the Buffaloes. Eagles submariner Kazuhisa Makita pitched out of a two-on one-out situation in the 10th before Brandon Dickson sealed the tie in the bottom of the 10th with a 1-2-3 inning.

Hawks blow out Fighters

Shunsuke Kasaya (4-3) threw six scoreless innings, while Yuki Yanagita had four hits and scored three runs, and Yurisbel Gracial and Nobuhiro Matsuda each drove in three as the SoftBank Hawks whipped the Nippon Ham Fighters 11-2 at Sapporo Dome.

The win, combined with the Lotte Marines’ 2-1 loss to the Seibu Lions, increased the Hawks’ Pacific League lead to 6-1/2 games.

Kasaya, who threw five scoreless innings in his previous start, allowed two hits and two walks while striking out eight. The Hawks blasted Fighters right-hander Naoyuki Uwasawa (8-6) for seven runs over five innings.

Fighters right-hander Bryan Rodriguez allowed two runs in one inning of relief, marking his season debut after the team said in June he’d had surgery to clean out his left knee.

“He brought something and threw some really good pitches,” manager Hideki Kuriyama said of Rodriguez.

Christian Villanueva also returned to the Fighters lineup for the first time in two weeks and drew a walk in three plate appearances.

Wednesday’s game is going to see Hawks’ ace Kodai Senga take on first-year Fighters import Drew VerHagen.

Lions survive blown Masuda save

The Seibu Lions scored an unearned ninth-inning run to walk off 2-1 winners over the Lotte Marines at MetLife Dome after closer Tatsushi Masuda (4-0) allowed the tying run in the ninth.

Both starting pitchers went seven with Lotte’s Ayumu Ishikawa allowing a run, while Kona Takahashi left with a 1-0 lead.

Lions left fielder Corey Spangenberg helped keep the Marines off the board in the third by robbing Yudai Fujioka of a leadoff single. Marines second baseman Shogo Nakamura did the same in the home half with a good play to defuse a Lions rally.

Shuta Tonosaki broke the scoreless deadlock in the seventh. He singled with one out, went to third on a Kakeru Yamanobe run-and-hit single and scored on Yuji Kaneko’s booming sacrifice fly.

Lions right-hander Kaima Taira worked a scoreless eighth, but Masuda walked a batter and hit one before surrendering a Tatsuhiro Tamura RBI single.

Tonosaki, however, rescued the Lions in the home half when he doubled with two outs against the Marines’ Naoya Masuda (3-3) and scored when Leonys Martin and Nakamura collided in shallow right as Yamanobe’s fly fell untouched.

Swallows walk away with tie

Yomiuri Giants rookie of the year candidate Shosei Togo threw a career-high 134 pitches over six scoreless innings in which he struck out nine and walked six, but had nothing to show for it after three relievers combined to blow the save in the ninth in a 1-1 10-inning with the Yakult Swallows at Tokyo’s Jingu Stadium.

Rubby De La Rosa issued a five-pitch leadoff walk and left with two outs and two on after a sacrifice, a single and a strikeout. Lefty Ryusei Oe walked Norichika Aoki on five pitches to load them up and Toyoki Tanaka walked Tetsuto Yamada on four pitches to tie it.

The Giants lead the second-place Chunichi Dragons by 10-1/2 games and their magic number to clinch their second-straight Central League championship is seven.

Dragons 6, BayStars 1

Koji Fukutani (7-2) allowed one run over six innings, and the Chunichi Dragons cashed in three of their six sixth-inning base runners to come from behind in a 6-1 win over the DeNA BayStars at Nagoya Dome.

Fukutani allowed three hits, including Tyler Austin’s first-inning home run, and a walk, while striking out seven. Hiroto Fuku and Daisuke Sobue closed it out with one scoreless inning apiece for the Dragons. Dayan Viciedo went 3-for-5 with a double, a run, and two RBIs, while Toshiki Abe also had three hits, scored twice and drove in two.

Spencer Patton struck out three in the eighth for the BayStars, but allowed a run on an Abe double and a one-out Viciedo single.

Kuri holds off Tigers

Allen Kuri (7-5), who retired the first 14 batters he faced, allowed a run over 8-1/3 innings while the Carp scored four times in the third inning against Onelki Garcia (2-6), who was pitching for the first time in a month, in a 5-1 win over the Hanshin Tigers at Koshien Stadium.

Kuri, who has allowed one run in each of his last three starts, gave up three of his four hits in the ninth inning, when Geronimo Franzua came in to record his 15th save.

Former Tigers closer Kyuji Fujikawa, who announced that this will be his last season, took the mound for the first time since Aug. 10 and worked a scoreless sixth inning.

Active roster moves 10/20/2020

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 10/30

Central League

Activated

BayStarsP94Takamasa Kasai
TigersP77Onelki Garcia
SwallowsP48Yuto Kanakubo

Dectivated

TigersP49Joe Gunkel
SwallowsP61Takuma Kubo

Pacific League

Activated

MarinesP62Shoji Nagano
MarinesIF4Yudai Fujioka
MarinesOF0Takashi Ogino
FightersP40Suguru Fukuda
FightersP41Bryan Rodriguez
FightersIF44Christian Villanueva
BuffaloesIF5Masahiro Nishino

Dectivated

None

Starting pitchers for Oct. 21, 2020

Pacific League

Fighters vs Hawks: Sapporo Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Drew VerHagen (7-5, 3.47) vs Kodai Senga (8-6, 2.65)

Eagles vs Buffaloes: Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Hideaki Wakui (11-3, 2.95) vs Tsubasa Sakakibara (1-2, 4.13)

Lions vs Marines: MetLife Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Shota Hamaya (2-2, 6.19) vs Wei-Yin Chen (0-1, 3.00)

Central League

Swallows vs Giants: Jingu Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Masanori Ishikawa (1-7, 4.92) vs Yuki Takahashi (1-0, 2.35)

Dragons vs BayStars: Nagoya Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Akiyoshi Katsuno (4-4, 3.70) vs Yuya Sakamoto (4-1, 5.24)

Tigers vs Carp: Koshien Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Koyo Aoyagi (6-8, 4.08) vs Atsushi Endo (3-5, 4.45)