Tag Archives: Takumi Kuriyama

NPB 2020 Nov. 3

Tuesday’s games

Other news

Spangenberg, Kuriyama power Lions

Corey Spangenberg and veteran Takumi Kuriyama powered the Seibu Lions as they from behind to beat the Nippon Ham Fighters 5-4 at MetLife Dome on a holiday Tuesday afternoon game to pull into a tie for second-place in the Pacific League with the Lotte Marines.

Spangenberg’s fourth-inning solo homer put the Lions up 3-2, and his sac fly tied it 4-4 in the sixth. Shuta Tonosaki plated Fumikazu Kimura in the seventh with the go-ahead run as the Seibu bullpen locked it down after a rough outing by Kona Takahashi.

The right-hander had trouble from the start but managed a 1-2-3 first thanks to a good play from two-time Golden Glove winning shortstop Sosuke Genda to retire the leadoff man. Takahashi needed all the help he could get as he allowed four runs on four walks and six hits over 4-1/3 innings. He left after Taishi Ota’s lucky RBI single tied it 3-3, but rookie Tetsu Miyagawa’s two walks forced in a run to give the Fighters the lead again.

Kuriyama homered to tie it in the third and led off the sixth and scored on Spangenberg’s sac fly.

Ryosuke Moriwaki (7-1), the Lions’ fourth pitcher, worked around two hits and a walk in a scoreless seventh to earn the win after Kaima Taira and closer Tatsushi Masuda each retired three straight hitters.

Hawks come back to sink Marines

Nobuhiro Matsuda’s two-out RBI single broke a 3-3 sixth-inning tie and capped a four-run rally as the SoftBank Hawks came from behind to beat the Lotte Marines 4-3 at Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium. The win was the Hawks sixth straight against Lotte after starting the season 4-11-1 against them.

The Marines took a 3-0 lead against Rick van den Hurk (2-2) on Ikuhiro Kiyota’s two-run first-inning homer and Yudai Fujioka’s fourth-inning solo homer.

Ayumu Ishikawa (7-6) took a 3-0 lead into the sixth, when Akira Nakamura had the Hawks’ third one-out single of the game. Yuki Yanagita followed with another. With one out, Yurisbel Gracial beat a throw to first to avoid a double play before Kenji Akashi drilled a two-run double to the gap. Ryoya Kurihara’s smash single tied it. Takuya Kai worked a walk off new pitcher Yuki Karakawa and Matsuda singled in the go-ahead run.

Five Hawks relievers finished the job with Yuito Mori getting his 31st save.

The game was held up for 14 minutes in the bottom of the fifth when brilliant sunshine over the stadium rim blinded those at home plate.

Moya crushes Eagles’ hopes

Steven Moya homered twice scored three runs and drove in four to power the Orix Buffaloes to a 6-3 win at Osaka’s Kyocera Dome over the Rakuten Eagles, who fell 2-1/2 games out of second place with four games to play.

Moya closed the book on Eagles ace Takahiro Norimoto (5-7) with his second homer of the game, a two-run seventh-inning shot. D.J. Johnson and J.T. Chargois retired three batters apiece in a solid rear-guard effort for Rakuten.

Kyoda, Kinoshita boost Dragons past ‘Stars

Yota Kyoda snapped a 1-1 tie with a two-run fifth-inning triple in the Chunichi Dragons’ 7-5 win over the DeNA BayStars at Nagoya Dome. Chunichi catcher Takumi Kinoshita had three hits for the hosts. He singled to lead off the fifth, homered in the sixth and singled in an eighth-inning insurance run.

 Kikuchi rescues Carp, spoils Togo shutout

Ryosuke Kikuchi homered with two outs and a man on in the bottom of the ninth to break up rookie Shosei Togo‘s shutout and take Hiroshima Carp starter Allen Kuri off the hook in a 10-inning 2-2 tie with the Yomiuri Giants at Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium.

Swallows come back

Taishi Hirooka hit a seventh-inning, game-tying homer and Naomichi Nishiura’s three-run 10th-inning shot off Yuta Iwasada (6-3) decided it as the Yakult Swallows came back to beat the Hanshin Tigers 4-1 at Koshien Stadium.

Hirooka tied it off Hanshin’s second pitcher, Suguru Iwazaki, but Jon Edwards and Robert Suarez each worked a scoreless inning, while the Swallows bullpen put up four scoreless innings to force extra innings. Nishimura homered in the 10th and Taichi Ishiyama recorded his 18th save.

Jones ends 1st season in Japan

The Pacific League’s Orix Buffaloes announced that first-year import Adam Jones returned to the United States on Tuesday.

Jones played in 87 games with a .331 on-base percentage with a .417 slugging average with 12 home runs and 43 RBIs. He had been deactivated due to “lack of fitness.”

In Japanese language comments released by the team, Jones called it an amazing year despite the difficulties imposed by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

He said he had learned to alter his approach having learned about Japanese baseball and Japanese culture, and that he was looking forward to come back fit and compete next year for the entire season.

Active roster moves 11/3/2020

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 11/13

Central League

Activated

GiantsP17Kan Otake
GiantsP96Nattino Diplan
BayStarsP94Takamasa Kasai
BayStarsIF4Yukiya Ito
TigersOF25Taiga Egoshi
DragonsP50Tatsuya Shimizu
DragonsC68Iori Katsura
DragonsIF7Akira Neo

Dectivated

BayStarsP15Shoichi Ino
TigersP29Haruto Takahashi
DragonsP36Yuichiro Okano
DragonsC44Yuya Gunji

Pacific League

Activated

LionsP19Hiromasa Saito
HawksP44Rick van den Hurk
FightersP29Kazutomo Iguchi
BuffaloesP14Kazumasa Yoshida
BuffaloesP30Kohei Suzuki
BuffaloesIF24Kotaro Kurebayashi
BuffaloesIF42Aderlin Rodriguez
BuffaloesIF53Sho Gibo
BuffaloesOF00Hayato Nishiura

Dectivated

LionsP30Daiki Enokida
FightersP13Tsubasa Nabatame

Starting pitchers for Nov. 4, 2020

Pacific League

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

Zach Neal (5-8, 5.21) vs Kosei Yoshida (0-1, 5.40)

Marines vs Hawks: Zozo Marine Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Chen Wei-Yin (0-2, 2.25) vs Kodai Senga (10-6, 2.31)

Buffaloes vs Eagles: Kyocera Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Daichi Takeyasu (1-0, 0.00) vs Hideaki Wakui (11-4, 3.31)

Central League

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

Akiyoshi Katsuno (4-5, 3.65) vs Yuya Sakamoto (4-1, 5.31)

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

Shintaro Fujinami (1-6, 4.68) vs Masanori Ishikawa (2-8, 4.73)

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

Atsushi Endo (4-6, 4.13) vs Yuki Takahashi (1-2, 5.74)

NPB 2020 Nov. 2

Monday’s games

CL

  • No games

Other news

Uchikawa set to leave Hawks

Seiichi Uchikawa, a former Japan international, one of two players to win a batting title in both the Central and Pacific leagues and the player, more than any other, who signaled the start of the SoftBank Hawks’ current dynasty, will look for another team next season after being told he is no longer in the PL champs’ plans.

He joins a growing number of veterans on the winter job market including Tigers’ outfielder Kosuke Fukudome and former Hanshin ace Atsushi Nomi.

In 2011, the 38-year-old Uchikawa became the first CL star in his prime to move directly to the PL as a free agent. The Nippon Ham Fighters’ biggest hitter of their strong teams from 2006 to 2012, Atsunori Inaba, left the Yakult Swallows after 2004, but signed with the Fighters only after he failed to get a guaranteed offer in the majors.

Uchikawa’s arrival, a year after SoftBank won its first pennant but lost in the playoffs, was followed by the team winning six Japan Series championships in nine seasons.

The native of Oita Prefecture, Uchikawa was the BayStars’ No. 1 pick out of high school in the 2000 draft, and had his breakout season in 2004. He is one of those players who works hard to make himself understood and expends more energy than most in thinking of better ways to express himself. So while some players seem to have a recorded answer for common questions they face and give identical answers every time they are asked, I doubt Uchikawa ever answers any question the same way.

He speaks with a lisp, and while some players with a speech impediment seem reluctant to speak, Uchikawa has always appeared to relish it and seems to enjoy delivering unique perspectives on the most mundane topics.

Enokida pitches Lions past Fighters

The Nippon Ham Fighters gave lefty Daiki Enokida a bunch of mulligans by laying off fat pitches early on, and before they knew it, the game was up in a 4-0 two-hit loss to the Seibu Lions on Monday at MetLife Dome.

The Lions win moved them to within one-game of the second-place Lotte Marines in the fight for the Pacific League’s second and final playoff spot.

Enokida (1-1) began with inconsistent location, but the Fighters hitters went to the plate almost as if they’d been told Enokida would throw NOTHING in the zone. So when he missed, they watched or were surprised, and the 34-year-old began pin-pointing the edges of the zone and really spinning his 86-mph fastball that the Fighters hitters rarely got good swings on.

Fighters rookie Tsubasa Nabatame (0-1) allowed two runs in the first. An error, an infield single and a sacrifice put two men in scoring position. With the infield in against left-handed-hitting Takumi Kuriyama, the rookie left a pitch up, and Kuriyama put a textbook flat slap-hitter swing on it smacking it between third and short for a two-run single.

Fumikazu Kimura homered in the fifth to make it 3-0 and Ryosuke Moriwake got the Lions out of a seventh-inning jam after Enokida allowed a one-out double and a walk.

Kaima Taira worked a 1-2-3 eighth and after an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth, closer Tatsushi Masuda sat down so Reed Garrett could finish the shutout.

Active roster moves 11/2/2020

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 11/12

Central League

Activated

None

Dectivated

GiantsP12Rubby De La Rosa
GiantsP30Yohei Kagiya
BayStarsP12Kosuke Sakaguchi
TigersOF7Yoshio Itoi

Pacific League

Activated

LionsP30Daiki Enokida
FightersP13Tsubasa Nabatame
FightersC64Yua Tamiya

Dectivated

LionsP50Shunta Nakatsuka
HawksP67Shunsuke Kasaya
FightersP16Kohei Arihara
FightersC22Shinya Tsuruoka
BuffaloesP32Brandon Dickson
BuffaloesP52Tyler Higgins
BuffaloesIF5Masahiro Nishino
BuffaloesIF36Tatsuya Yamaashi
BuffaloesOF50Yuya Oda
BuffaloesOF56Yusuke Matsui

Starting pitchers for Nov. 3, 2020

Pacific League

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

Daiki Enokida (0-1, 7.13) vs Tsubasa Nabatame (0-0, 27.00)

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

Kona Takahashi (8-8, 3.63) vs Takahiro Nishimura (0-0, 4.15)

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

Ayumu Ishikawa (7-5, 4.01) vs Rick van den Hurk (1-2, 7.29)

Central League

Buffaloes vs Eagles: Kyocera Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Sachiya Yamasaki (4-5, 4.83) vs Takahiro Norimoto (5-6, 3.67)

Dragons vs BayStars: Nagoya Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Koji Fukutani (7-2, 2.53) vs Shinichi Onuki (10-5, 2.41)

Tigers vs Swallows: Koshien Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Koyo Aoyagi (7-8, 3.69) vs Hirotoshi Takanashi (3-6, 4.34)

Carp vs Giants: Mazda Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Allen Kuri (8-5, 3.04) vs Shosei Togo (8-6, 2.92)