September 22nd, 2009
Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3
Streak: Won 1 Last : LLLLW
(Mazda Stadium)
After last night’s roadcrash-esque 9th inning failure, Tokyo eased to victory off the back of a superb complete game shutout performance from rotation newcomer Takagi.
The 26 year old earned his second career win as he went the distance on 115 pitches, giving up just 4 hits, striking out 5 and walking none. His record now stands at 2-0/1.10. Who’d have thought back in happier pre-allstar times that he would end up being the form/most reliable starter on the pitching staff come September?
Takada again tinkered with his lineup this afternoon:
- Fukuchi (LF)
- Tanaka (2B)
- Miyamoto (SS)
- Aoki (CF)
- Ihara (RF)
- Hatakeyama (3B)
- Noguchi (1B)
- Aikawa (C)
- Takagi (P)
Tokyo faced Hiroshima starter Saitoh, and got a man to second in both the 2nd inning (Hatake double) and the 3rd (Aikawa double) but it wasn’t until the 4th that they managed the breakthrough.
Aoki drew a one out walk before Ihara launched one over the fence in leftfield and it was 2-0 Tokyo. It was Yasushi’s sixth homer of the year. Another Hatakeyama double was then followed up by the same from Noguchi and it was 3-0. After Aikawa flew out for out number two, they could have scored more as Takagi chipped in with a single of his own to put men on the corners with two outs, but Fukuchi could only ground out and the lead remained at three.
The teams manage one more hit each in the 5th and after that pitchers dominated as neither team managed another hit through the distance, 3-0 Tokyo Final.
A nice win and Takagi is certainly developing into quite a prospect for the future. But it’ll need another couple of weeks of continous victories like this from the team to make up for the dross served up these last six weeks.
The two teams meet again tomorrow at 13:30 with the season series now tied at eleven.
About David Watkins
