Tag Archives: Tsuyoshi Wada

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Spring wrap 3-21-21

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Sunday was the final day of Japan’s preseason exhibition season, with teams scheduled to begin playing meaningful games from Friday. One game, between the Lotte Marines and DeNA BayStars was rained out, depriving us of our second look at flame-throwing 19-year-old Roki Sasaki, who was slated to throw two innings for the Marines.

I don’t know what was going on at Osaka’s Kyocera Dome this weekend, but the Hanshin Tigers and Orix Buffaloes struck out A LOT in their three games, 19 times on Friday, 22 times each on Saturday and Sunday.

Did Orix reduce the lighting in its home park to give their pitchers more confidence going into the season? I mean if your team is as bad as the Buffaloes, no hitters being able to see the ball kind of levels the playing field.

The teams tied 1-1 on Sunday, as Hanshin’s Joe Gunkel struck out six while allowing an unearned run over five innings. Taisuke Yamaoka, who opened the Buffaloes’ season last year, struck out 10 over six innings while allowing his first run over 13-2/3 preseason innings.

At MetLife Dome, Yakult Swallows slugger Munetaka Murakami homered twice, while the club’s top draft pick from 2019, teenager Yasunobu Okugawa started in an 8-6 loss to the Seibu Lions.

Katsunori Hirai, the Lions’ bullpen workhorse who’s moving to the rotation this year, allowed five runs over 5-2/3 innings.

At Nagoya’s Vanetelin Dome, Chunichi Dragons lefty Shinnosuke Ogasawara ended the preseason on a hopeful note, allowing a run on two walks and a hit over six innings in a 9-2 win over the Nippon Ham Fighters.

A day after hitting everything Dragons starter Yuya Yanagi threw up there, the Fighters returned to hitless wonder mode.

“Except for yesterday, we haven’t been hitting at all ,” manager Hideki Kuriyama said according to the Chunichi Sports. “As the manager, of course I’m concerned because we’re simply not hitting the ball hard.”

At Tokyo Dome, it was a tough day for lefties as impressive Rakuten Eagles rookie Takahisa Hayakawa allowed five runs over 4-2/3 innings in an 8-4 loss to the Yomiuri Giants, whose southpaw starter, Nobutaka Imamura gave up four runs over five innings.

Giants skipper Tatsunori Hara had some harsh words for catcher Takumi Oshiro’s pitch calling, Daily Sports reported.

“When he’d get to two strikes, he’d pitch around, pitch around, pitch around, until the count was full and then they’d end up walking a guy. I think the pitchers see that the same way I do,” said Hara, whose team has become the Central League’s flag bearers of trying to stay out of the strike zone as much as possible in the hopes batters chase.

At Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium, both SoftBank Hawks lefty Tsuyoshi Wada and Carp right-hander Yusuke Nomura had solid scoreless outings in Hiroshima’s 2-1 win. Wada struck out four over four innings, while Nomura fanned three over five.

Kevin Cron went hitless with two strikeouts for Hiroshima to finish the preseason batting .063.

Baseball, Free, News

Series 2020 Game 4

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The Pacific League’s SoftBank Hawks wrapped up the 2020 Japan Series with a 4-1 win over the Central League’s Yomiuri Giants on Wednesday at Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome on the back of two-run home runs by Yuki Yanagita and Takuya Kai.

The Hawks’ fourth-straight title makes them only the second club after the Giants to post a winning streak that long. The Giants won nine straight between 1965 and 1973. The Hawks have now won a record 12 straight series games and 16 straight series games at homes — their last loss in Fukuoka coming in Game 5 in 2011, when Wednesday’s starter Tsuyoshi Wada took the loss.

The Giants, whose choice of starting pitchers has sparked questions, sent unheralded right-hander Seishu Hatake. The 25-year-old showed SOME tremendous movement on his pitches but also hung a few up in the zone, and the Hawks crushed them.

For the first time in the series, the Giants scored first on back-to-back no-out doubles by Akihiro Wakabayashi and Hayato Sakamoto. Wada bore down, working around a two-out walk by striking out Hiroyuki Nakajima on 14 pitches.

The Hawks needed just two pitches to take the lead in the home half. Hatake hung two splitters to Akira Nakamura and Yuki Yanagita. The first went for a one-out double, the second for a two-run homer.

Wada, who didn’t have his trademark command, gutted it through the second inning after surrendering a leadoff single, but two more mistakes from Hatake and merciless execution from the Hawks made it 4-1 in the bottom of the second. Taisei Makihara swatted a high slider for a single and with two outs Takuya Kai hammered a high straight fastball for his second homer of the series.

Giants right-hander Shosei Togo, who was mysteriously left out of the Giants’ starting pitching plans, came in as the visitors’ third pitcher with two on and two outs in the third. After issuing a walk, he retired the next seven batters. Brazilian flame thrower Thyago Vieira touched 101.9 mph in his 1-2/3 innings.

With the Giants trailing by three in the seventh, ace Tomoyuki Sugano began warming up in the bullpen, making some wonder that the Giants might bring him out for a farewell mound appearance, but he never did more than warm up and lefty Kota Nakagawa mopped up in the eighth.

With a three-run lead, Wada left after two, and hard-throwing 24-year-old Yuki Matsumoto allowed singles over 2-2/3 scoreless innings. Lefty Shinya Kayama retired Yoshihiro Maru to end the fifth. Submarine right-hander Rei Takahashi started a parade of three straight 1-2-3 innings from the bullpen with Sho Iwasaki pitching the seventh and Livan Moinelo electrifying the eighth.