April 11th, 2009
Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3
Yokohama BayStars 0
Streak: Won 1 Last 5: LWWLW
(Yokohama Stadium)
After last night’s 9-1 drubbing at the hands of the previously winless club from Yokohama, I was seriously considering asking for a refund for the new Swallows hat that cost me 4,000 yen on Thursday night, should the birds come up with two losses in a row at the hands of the Baystars.
Luckily, the hat gets to stick around. If you got to the ballpark late and missed the top half of the first inning of this one, you missed all the scoring and had only the weather and the beer girls to admire.
On a glorious afternoon for baseball in Yokohama, Tokyo started off the top of the first by seeing Fukuchi and Kawashima get on base together with hits for the first time this season. Then, with two outs, Aaron Guiel delivered an RBI double to bring Fukuchi home. With Kawashima on third and Guiel on second, Shinya Miyamoto brought both men home with a single. Tanaka struck out to end the inning. 3-0 Tokyo.
And that was it for the scoring.
Offensively, Miyamoto ended up going 2 for 4 with 2 RBIs and, on defense, was the key man in the three double plays that ended hapless Yokohama’s first three innings on offense. Fukuchi went 3 for 5 and Kawashima and Aoki each went 2 for 5. Yokohama only managed six hits, with each coming from a different player.
And that brings us to the pitching. Tokyo starter and Game Hero Ichiba looked shaky at first, but did just enough for his first win for Yakult, going five innings and allowing only four hits. He made four consecutive outs with strikeouts, and even managed to single to center in the fourth. Although he had some trouble with control, Yokohama never seriously threatened to score.
After getting a hit to lead off the seventh, Yokohama saw nine straight men go down to Tokyo’s relief corps. Lim put Yokohama down in order in the ninth, striking out pinch hitter Matsumoto to end things (on a dropped third strike – sigh.)
Tomorrow afternoon is the rubber match of the series in Yokohama at 2pm. Hopefully the weekend can end on a high note before Yomiuri comes to visit next week.
