Tag Archives: Zelous Wheeler

Baseball, Free, News

NPB wrap 5-29-21

Leave a comment

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 5-19-21

Leave a comment

Don’t call him “Junior”

I was informed tonight by my colleague that in Japanese, “junior” is pronounced “junia,” and not “Junya” – like the name of Hanshin’s starting pitcher on Tuesday, Junya Nishi. The Japanese language does that a lot, bases its transliterations on spellings rather than on pronunciation, so my name “James” in Japanese is written so that it end in “su” rather than “zu,” since the only consonant allowed to end a word in Japanese is “n.”

I was hoping Mel Rojas Jr would do something in this game then we could have had a “junia”- “junya” hero interview, since it is customary to refer to players by their last names AND the junior. Do people call Jackie Bradley Jr. “Bradley” or “Bradley Jr.?” I have no idea.

Tigers 3, Swallows 1

At Koshien Stadium, the aforementioned Junya Nishi (1-0) walked four but allowed no hits over five scoreless innings despite a first inning that caused Hanshin to warm up a reliever: Two straight walks followed by three straight three-ball counts to the meat of the Yakult Swallows order. But hard-hit lineout on a 3-2 pitch to Munetaka Murakami and a borderline 3-2 strike to Jose Osuna, and just like that, the 19-year-old was out of trouble.

Koji Chikamoto homered to open the scoring off Kazuto Taguchi (1-3) in the fifth. Another run was charged to the lefty on a throwing error by catcher Yuhei Nakamura. Nakamura singled home the Swallows’ only run in the eighth after two straight two-out hits off Yuzuru Iwazaki.

Yakult’s first hit career .238 hitter Naomichi Nishiura’s pinch-hit single, caused the announcer to say, “Of course, we should have expected Nishiura to get the first hit.” This was probably news to everyone beside Nishiura’s fans and his family.

Jerry Sands made an unsung play by cutting off Nakamura’s ball before it went for a two-run double, and followed that with a sung play, his 10th home run in the bottom of the inning to complete the scoring. Robert Suarez retired Tetsuto Yamada, Murakami and Osuna to end it in the ninth and notch his Japan-best 13th save.

Carp 10, Giants 2

At Tokyo Dome, new Hiroshima Carp import Kevin Cron drew a leadoff walk in the eighth, scored the go-ahead run and capped the nine-run outburst with a grand slam, his fourth home run. Carp starter Allen Kuri (5-3) threw a 124-pitch complete game, giving up six hits, including Kazuma Okamoto’s 11th home run, while striking out four.

The Giants’ Zelous Wheeler went for 0-for-4 as his 22-game hitting streak came to an end.

Yuki Takahashi (5-1), the CL’s pitcher of the month for March and April, allowed five runs on five walks and five hits over 5-1/3 innings.

Giants-Carp highlights

BayStars vs Dragons: Rained out.

Eagles 3, Fighters 2

At Sendai’s Rakuten Seimei Park, Hideto Asamura hit his fourth home run,his second in two games, and drove in all three Rakuten runs to make a winner out of Takahiro Norimoto (4-1), who allowed two unearned runs over six innings while striking out nine.  He allowed the only two hits the Fighters managed.

Tomohito Saki, Alan Busenitz and Yuki Matsui hamstrung the Fighters over the final three innings with Matsui earning his 12th save.

Takayuki Kato (3-1) went six for the Fighters, allowing three runs, two earned, over six innings in which he struck out six. Wang Po-jung singled in both of Nippon Ham’s runs in the sixth after an error by Asamura at second prolonged the inning.

Hawks 6, Lions 5

At MetLife Dome, Seibu’s Aito Takeda tied it 5-5 with a two-out two-run seventh-inning single only for SoftBank’s Nobuhiro Matsuda to hit a leadoff ninth-inning double that set up the go-ahead run to score on a Yuya Hasegawa pinch-hit sac fly off Reed Garrett (0-1). Hawks’ lefty Livan Moinelo, their sixth pitcher, worked around two walks in the ninth for his fifth save.

Marines 6, Buffaloes 4

At Osaka’s Kyocera Dome, Lotte’s Brandon Laird went 3-for-3 with a walk, scored twice and hit his eighth home run, while Yudai Fujioka reached base three times and scored three runs as the Marines took no prisoners against Orix ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3-5), who gave up six runs, four earned, over six innings.

Lotte’s Daiki Iwashita (4-2) allowed three runs over six innings to earn the win. Naoya Masuda earned his 10th save. Orix’s Yutaro Sugimoto hit a pair of solo home runs, his ninth and 10th, with eight coming against the Marines.

Starting pitchers

Pacific League

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

Ryota Takinaka (2-2, 6.27) vs Takahide Ikeda (2-4, 3.31)

Lions vs Hawks: MetLife Dome 5:45 pm, 4:45 am EDT

Zach Neal (0-1, 6.00) vs Shuta Ishikawa (2-2, 2.73)

Central League

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

Shota Imanaga (-) vs Yariel Rodriguez (0-0, 1.35)

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

Koyo Aoyagi (3-2, 2.00) vs Rick van den Hurk (-)

Active roster moves 5/19/2021

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 5/29

Central League

Activated

TigersP15Junya Nishi
TigersP37Masaki Oyokawa
TigersP48Yukiya Saitoh
TigersP69Daichi Ishii
TigersOF25Taiga Egoshi

Dectivated

GiantsP23Ryoma Nogami
TigersP28Taiki Ono
TigersP43Koki Moriya
TigersP64Kentaro Kuwahara
TigersIF33Kento Itohara
SwallowsP54Cy Sneed

Pacific League

Activated

LionsP15Tetsu Miyagawa
LionsP34Yasuo Sano

Dectivated

LionsP29Ryuya Ogawa
LionsP36Sho Ito
EaglesIF24Fumiya Kurokawa
FightersP19Chihiro Kaneko