September 30th, 2011
Tokyo Swallows 0 
Yokohama BayStars 5
Streak: L1 Last 5: WWWWL
(Yokohama Stadium)
Swallows finish up the month of September 17-7-1 (with one rain out). This included the mind-blowing 12-1 start to the month.
In tonight’s game, we saw Masubuchi on the hill for the Birds, while Miura was the ‘Stars hurler.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | F | H | E |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swallows | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| BayStars | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 9 | 1 |
| WP: Miura (4-4) LP: Masubuchi (7-9) | ||||||||||||
Swallows | BayStars |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CF Aoki | 1 | LF Shimozono |
| 2 | 2B Tanaka | 2 | SS Ishikawa |
| 3 | SS Kawabata | 3 | 1B Tsutsugou |
| 4 | 1B Hatakeyama | 4 | 3B Murata |
| 5 | RF Balentien | 5 | RF Naitoh |
| 6 | 3B Miyamoto | 6 | 2B Fujita |
| 7 | LF Takeuchi | 7 | CF Morimoto |
| 8 | C Aikawa | 8 | C Kurobane |
| 9 | P Masubuchi | 9 | P Miura |
As you can see from the score-line above, things didn’t go the Birds way this evening. Both pitchers were pitching exceptionally well through the first third of the game, with Snoochi-boochi Masubuchi getting a nice double-play in the bottom half of the third to quell an early threat.
However, Masubuchi would slowly lose his grip on the game. He started the 4th by hitting Murata. Murata would move to third on a single by Naitoh. Fujita would be the first out of the inning when he grounded out to “Boo” at first. Matsumoto was up next. He hit a sac-fly to center that would score Murata from third but the inning would end when Fujita was tagged out trying to advance to second. 1 – 0 Yokohama
Hey don't worry about it. They will be sitting at home when we are in the playoffs!
The Baystars would add to their lead in the bottom of the 7th. Masubuchi’s day was over after 6 innings and was replaced by the southpaw Hidaka. Fujita would make up for his 4th inning gaffe by getting a one-out single. He would advance to second on a Matsumoto sac-bunt. Kurobane would drive in Fujita with a single to left-center. 2 – 0 Yokohama
That essentially sealed the game for Yokohama. But for good measure, they would add three more in the bottom of the 8th to put the game out of reach. Ichiba came in for the 8th and did not do very well. He walks the first two batters and gives up a hit to Tsutsugou. With the bases loaded, Ichiba’s evening was over. Matsui came in to try and get out of the jam, but was unable to do so. The first batter he faced, Murata, hit a double to score two runs. 4 – 0 Yokohama
After getting an out, he hit Fujita to put runners on 1st and 2nd. Matsumoto hit a single to left and drove in the final run of the evening. 5 – 0 Yokohama
Overall, this was not a pretty game for Tokyo. However, I will chalk it up to a tough last few days. The Birds battled back every night this week against the Tigers and didn’t have the same energy tonight. Hopefully they will get a good night sleep and be ready for a few day games the rest of the weekend.
On a positive note, the Tigers did us a favor by beating Chunichi 3-1. So our lead is still at 3 games.
We won! We won!
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