9/12/08 – Yomiuri (Away)

September 12th, 2008

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 7

Yomiuri Giants 11

Streak: Lost 4 Last 5: WLLLL

(Tokyo Dome)

This game was another indication that some of the guys in the bullpen need a rest.

Douglass (3.13 ERA) made it through a little bit more than four innings, but he gave up six earned runs off of seven hits during that span of time.

Kida (6.75) pitched the fifth without any further damage being recorded.

But then Oshimoto came in for a pair of innings and gave up five runs. He saw his ERA balloon to 3.41.

Hanada (3.68) pitched a scoreless eighth.

It was a bit of a seesaw game for most of the evening actually. Tokyo roughed up Yomiuri starter, Utsumi, for five runs in the top of the first, but then Yomiuri answered with three in the bottom half of that frame. By the end of the fifth, Tokyo was down five to six.

Tokyo scored two in the top of the sixth, but then Yomirui did the same moments later. In the seventh the Giants scored three more runs to put the game out of reach for good.

Douglass and Oshimoto gave up two home runs each (which is not exactly unusual in Tokyo Dome), and Oshimoto was tagged with the loss, his sixth on the year.

Hopefully the Tokyo offense and starters can work together to put games away early enough to give Oshimoto, Matsuoka and Lim a bit of a break.

As for offense, Hatakeyama went 3-5 with one rbi, and Iihara, Tanaka and Kawamoto had two hits each (2,3 and 1 RBIs, respectively. Tanaka swatted his first home run in ages, his third of the season, in the first inning (two runs scored).

Game two of the series is tomorrow afternoon at Tokyo Dome. 2:00p.m. start.