This is the second time in recent weeks that Kamada has been called up, the first time was detailed in this Roster Update. Kamada has a 4.50 in eight innings of work for the top team thus far, and he threw one scoreless inning last night.

Masubuchi is one of several young pitchers on the farm blessed with potential but battling injuries brought on by overuse (and baseballs to the face in this young man’s case). Masubuchi, a 21-year-old in his third year with the team, will hopefully begin making a contribution to the team within the next season or two.

In 10 appearances with the farm team this season, Masubuchi has a record of 3-1 and a 4.19 ERA. It could be argued that he is being elevated to the first team a bit too late in the season, but he does need top team starts, and several of them, before the end of the season.

Masubuchi had a very rough outing last night. He walked six batters, threw two wild pitches, and gave up seven earned runs in five innings. The only reason why he lasted five innings was because he was let out of a couple of jams by clutch double plays.

Headed down (again) are relief pitcher Jun Hagiwara and catcher Tomohito Yoneno.

Anyway, here’s what the top team looks like as of game-time yesterday:

Pitchers: Yoshinori, Lim, Tateyama, Ishikawa, Yuuki,  Matsui, Takagi, Lee, Yoshikawa, Oshimoto, Masubuchi, Kamada

Catchers: Aikawa, Kawamoto

Infielders: Kawashima, Miyamoto, Yoshimoto, Tanaka, Hatakeyama, Noguchi, D’Antona

Outfielders: Fukuchi, Guiel, Takeuchi, Iihara, Aoki, Yuichi

During his time on the farm, the right-handed Tokyo native appeared in four games and picked up two saves while not giving up any earned runs.

On the top team this year, including tonight’s game, Hagiwara has made 34 appearances and has an ERA of 4.81.

Dropped to the farm team, as expected, is outfielder Munehiro Shida. He had a home run in his first at-bat on the top team this season, but he wasn’t able to do anything exciting after that.

Here’s a look at Tokyo’s first team roster as of game time today:

Pitchers: Yoshinori, Lim, Tateyama, Ishikawa, Yuuki,  Matsui, Takagi, Lee, Yoshikawa, Oshimoto, Hagiwara

Catchers: Aikawa, Yoneno, Kawamoto

Infielders: Kawashima, Miyamoto, Yoshimoto, Tanaka, Hatakeyama, Noguchi, D’Antona

Outfielders: Fukuchi, Guiel, Takeuchi, Iihara, Aoki, Yuichi

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 1

Hanshin Tigers 6

Streak: Lost 5    Last 5:  LLLLL

(Koshien)

The Tokyo Swallows kicked off an absolutely enormous week in defense of their ever-weakening hold on third place (and a playoff spot) by traveling down to Hanshin territory for a series versus the resurgent Tigers.

Refreshingly, the lineup finally looked like it did before the slump began in earnest (just a little while before D’Antona and Miyamoto went down with injuries).

Yes, that’s right. D’Antona was back in the lineup tonight for the first time since a little over two weeks ago. The original prognosis was that he would be out for three weeks, but he appears to have rehabbed at an impressive pace.

Tokyo’s starting lineup:

1. Fukuchi (LF)
2. Tanaka (2B)
3. Aoki (CF)
4. D’Antona (1B)
5. Guiel (RF)
6. Miyamoto (3B)
7. Kawashima (SS)
8. Aikawa (C)
9. Tateyama (P)

Toritani put the home team on the board in the first on  a two-out homer to right-center. 1-0 Hanshin.

The Swallows got a little something going after Guiel’s leadoff pop fly to left. With one out, Miyamoto, Kawashima, and Aikawa had back-to-back-to-back singles to load the bases.

But then, with Tateyama at the plate, Takada called for the squeeze on the first pitch. The ball bounced just in front of the plate which made it easy for Yano to glove it, step on home plate, and throw to first for the double play. A true tak bunt if there ever was one. Oops.

The bottom of the second inning started with a bit of slapstick humor. Arai fouled the first pitch he saw off of the home plate ump’s left knee. After a three minute break where it looked like the ump might start crying, he fouled the second Tateyama offering off the inside of his left thigh. He toughed it out, however, and eventually smacked a 2-2 pitch into left field.

However, D’Antona managed to turn the second unassisted double-play of the inning when Brazell lined the first pitch he saw right at him and he was easily able to double up Arai at first. Sakurai then lofted a pitch to the warning track in center for out number three.

The strike zone got a lot bigger after that as it looked like the umpire wanted to go home early. Both pitchers benefited for a little while, but then in the fourth Tateyama left a pitch over the plate that Aikawa had called for way outside. Kanemoto took advantage of it, and the result was a two-run homer that took the score to 3-0 Hanshin.

Following that, Arai singled and Brazell walked to put runners on first and second with one out. Sakurai ended up grounding one toward first that D’Antona did a good job of catching, but the throw to first wasn’t in time to get the double play. With two out, there were runners on first and third, and Tateyama’s control just got worse and worse.

Yano managed to come through with an rbi single to center that scored Arai from third to make it 4-0 Hanshin.

Hanshin starter, Ando, mercifully struck out to stop the bleeding.

With two outs in the top of the fifth, Tateyama and Fukuchi reached on consecutive singles. That came as a bit of a surprise to Ando. But he buckled down again and eventually got Tanaka to ground out to second to end the inning.

With Ando already on 86 pitches through five innings, Aoki led off the sixth with a stand-up double off the wall in right. D’Antona followed that with a first pitch bloop single to shallow right to move Aoki over to third with no outs. Guiel ended up grounding into a double play, but Aoki scored from third in the meantime to finally get a run on the board. 4-1 Hanshin.

Hey, we’ll take it. The last time Aoki, D’Antona, and Guiel came to the plate, all three of them struck out. At least they were able to generate a run this time around.

Incidentally, Yano’s pitch calling against Guiel in this game was very good. He just kept feeding Guiel a steady diet of inside pitches which the Tokyo outfielder pulled into foul territory every time. Yano then called for low outside pitches later in the at-bat, and Guiel popped up and grounded out once (and watched another pitch for a called third strike).

When Tateyama next took the mound, he had already thrown 83 pitches. He really needed to get out of this inning quickly in order to have a chance at pitching the seventh inning. But it wasn’t meant to be.

Kanemoto led off with a single before Arai hit a harrassing fly ball to center that ricocheted off of Aoki’s outstretched glove. Kanemoto chugged around from first to make it 5-1 Hanshin.

With Arai on second and one out, Katsuragi moved him over to third on a grounder to second for out number two. Arai later scored on pinch-hitter, Hiyama’s, single to center. 6-1 Hanshin.

In six innings of work, Tateyama threw 103 pitches, gave up six earned runs off of nine hits (two of which were home runs), struck out two, and walked a pair as well. Not to take anything away from the Hanshin hitters, because they definitely had a good game (Toritani is seeing everything in slow-motion at the moment), but this was definitely not one of Tateyama’s better starts. His record moved to 14-4 while his ERA fattened a bit to 3.44.

Recently recalled Hagiwara (4.81) pitched a scoreless seventh.

Mayumi showed his true colors in the eighth by bringing Egusa in to pitch with a five run lead (a true waste of an outing with the way that the birds are playing right now). Aoki grounded out harmlessly for out number one, and Hatakeyama fouled off three straight pitches before finally drawing a walk. Guiel followed that with a four pitch walk of Guiel. Huh.

Miyamoto came to the plate with runners on first and second and one out. After it looked like he might have things going his way, he guessed wrong and struck out swinging. And then something really strange happened. After looking like he was getting owned by Egusa, Kawashima drew a walk which loaded the bases with two outs.

And after that third walk, that was it for Egusa. Nice one, Mayumi. [I bet his middle name is Takada.]

So then another one of Hanshin’s very capable middle-relievers, Atchison, had to be called in to clean up a mess that wasn’t necessary in the first place.

Lucky for him, he was facing Aikawa. In a matter of 10 seconds, Atchison was well ahead in the count, and then Aikawa struck out looking (on a pitch that was a fair bit outside, but hey) to end the threat.

Takagi (1.29) came in to pitch the bottom of the eighth, and he looked reasonably sharp. He gave up Arai’s fourth hit of the evening (what did he have for breakfast?) to lead things off, but he sat everyone else down in order.

Abe then took the mound in his 19th appearance for Hanshin and walked both batters he faced, Iihara (pinch hitting for Takagi) and Fukuchi. That caused Mayumi to come out and make the unnecessary switch to Fujikawa. Men on first and second, and nobody out.

And Fujikawa came in and did his thing. He struck out Tanaka, Aoki, and Hatakeyama to close out the game and secure a very easy contest for the Hanshin Tigers.

Final score: 6-1 Hanshin.

And, once again, we must acknowledge a large part of the problem:

Takada Count: 10

Keep in mind that this number should be about twice as high as it is right now, but I was way too nice earlier on because the team was winning during the first half of the season. Funny how that happens. Now it appears that the Tigers are playing well in spite of their manager much like we did during the first half of the season.

Bright spots:

Veterans Fukuchi and Miyamoto had two hits each, and Kawashima also reached base twice. Fukuchi actually reached base three time when counting that walk in the ninth.

Takagi looked OK pitching the eighth. With all the injuries on the team this season, it’s nice to see one guy could come up from the farm and show enough potential to stick around a while. I’ve  probably just jinxed the kid, but he’s got solid mechanics and at least three good pitches that I saw.

Other than that, this game wasn’t a whole lot of fun to watch.

Kida, a veteran right-handed pitcher who has played in the majors for the Dodgers and Mariners, spent most of the season on the top team before being demoted a little over a week ago. Through 42 and a third innings on the top team, Kida has 3-4 record and a 5.74 ERA.

He turns 41 on September 12th, so hopefully he can return to form and help the team notch a few wins before that point.

His blog can be found here.

Shida, a decent all-around player who hits and throws righty, is in his eighth year with the team. He hit .222 in 45 plate appearances last season, but his at-bat yesterday was the first top team at-bat of 2009.

In 75 games on the farm team so far this season, Shida has hit .251 and collected 25 rbi’s.

Headed down to the farm team to replace them are starting pitcher, Ichiba, and reliever, Hagiwara. Ichiba (7.88) was 1-5 in nine appearances for the first team, and the current demotion is undoubtedly partially the result of Thursday’s game against the Tigers. Hagiwara was reasonably effective at the start of the season but has been overused and currently sports an ERA of 4.93.

Here’s a look at the top team 28-man roster:

Pitchers: Yoshinori, Lim, Tateyama, Ishikawa, Matsuoka, Yuuki, Kida, Matsui, Takagi, Lee, Igarashi, Oshimoto

Catchers: Aikawa, Yoneno, Kawamoto

Infielders: Kawashima, Kajimoto, Yoshimoto, Tanaka, Hatakeyama, Kawabata, Noguchi

Outfielders: Fukuchi, Guiel, Takeuchi, Iihara, Aoki, Shida

Hanshin Tigers 10

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 2

Streak: Lost 1     Last 5:  LWLWL

(Jingu Stadium)

Well, I was wrong about who would be pitching today. I thought, and kind of hoped, that it would be Yuuki. Unfortunately, it was Ichiba.

So it is probably necessary for me to think of a couple of positives before getting into the report of the game. Here’s are a couple of things to be happy about at this point in time:

a) many of the fair-weather Hanshin fans are staying home these days, so the police presence has been reduced quite a bit.

b) Jingu has temporarily suspended their tolerance of those balloons due to the health hazard that they pose (swine flu, etc.). Hopefully the stadium authorities will join the growing number of stadia that ban their use outright.

But that’s about all there is to be happy about at  this point. Today’s game was nothing short of brutal.

Tokyo’s lineup:

1. Fukuchi (LF)
2. Kawabata (SS)
3. Aoki (CF)
4. Hatakeyama (3B)
5. Guiel (RF)
6. Takeuchi (1B)
7. Tanaka (2B)
8. Kawamoto (C)
9. Ichiba (P)

As you can plainly see, every other guy in the lineup is second string, so run production was again a rather significant issue. The biggest issue, however, was the man in the number nine slot.

Hanshin’s Akahoshi and our Kawashima were both taking a rest today after getting pegged in yesterday’s game. That was a good ‘ole beanball fest with Hanshin hitting us three times and the Swallows retaliating with two hit batters of its own.

The first inning wasn’t very exciting aside from a nice hit up the middle by Kawabata. Aoki nearly hit into a double play, but was quick to the bag. The end of the inning came on a nice leaping grab by second baseman, Hirano.

Ichiba started the second by walking Kanemoto despite being way ahead in the count from the start. Arai popped up to right for out number one, Sakurai drew a second full-count walk from Ichiba.

Allow me just a moment to say, “Holy crap Ichiba takes a long time to get ready to throw!” I’m not exactly sure why he needs that much time to throw pitches in the dirt, but…

Ichiba saw a third batter work a full count on him, but luckily Katsuragi struck out swinging to put a second out on the board.

Unfortunately, for the team, but luckily for Ichiba’s ERA, the ensuing ground ball that was hit to third was bobbled, and Hatakeyama made a terrible hash of getting the ball to first. He was tagged with an error on the play, and the bases were loaded.

Amazingly, Hatakeyama snagged another error on the very next hitter, and run number one scored while the bases stayed loaded. 1-0 Tigers.

Asai then came through with Hanshin’s first hit of the inning when he drove one through the middle to score two. 3-0 Hanshin.

And the crowd started to get very, very restless.

Somehow, Ichiba got Hirano to strike out swinging to finally put an end to the inning.

Guiel started the second by striking out after chasing a very low outside pitch, and Takeuchi followed with a full count grounder straight to second for out number two. Tanaka managed to beat the throw to first on a lengthy grounder between third and short, but Kawamoto forced a full-count swing and struck out to end the inning.

The top of the third was also a mess. Ichiba started responding to the unending abuse from right field and sped up his tempo. For the record, it didn’t help one bit.

Toritani and Kanemoto both came up with solo home runs to put the Tigers ahead 5-0.

Arai very nearly put a third one over the wall in right, but Guiel caught it right at the warning track for the first out. Sakurai then destroyed a pitch but luckily it seared straight at Fukuchi in left.

Katsuragi then drew a two out walk, and Kanou hit one that bounced off the wall in center to score Katsuragi from first. Kanou made it to second on the hit. 6-0 Hanshin.

Hanshin pitcher, Kubo, then bounced one at Hatakeyama who again did a terrible job of throwing to first. However, the scorer got tired of assigning him errors, and it was called a hit. With two outs and runners on first and third, Asai popped one softly into the seats in left to clear the bases and make it 9-0 Hanshin. Hirano mercifully struck out to end the inning.

I don’t know how much Kawamoto had to do with all those home runs, but damn…I think that the last time I saw someone get hit that hard was in high school.

The Swallows got things started in the bottom of the third with consecutive hits from pinch-hitter Yoneno (in for Ichiba) and Fukuchi. Kawabata then singled to right to load the bases and give Aoki a huge chance at being a bit of a hero for the home team. A hit would have been preferable, but Aoki managed a sac fly to center field that scored Yoneno and moved Fukuchi over to third.

With runners on first and third and Hatakeyama at the plate, there was some hope that he would atone for all of that nasty fielding during the first three innings of the game with a big hit, but all he could come up with was a potential double-play ball. Luckily for the less than speedy third baseman, Kawabata made a good hard slide into second that slowed down the throw and allowed Hatakeyama to reach safely. Fukuchi scored from third in the process. 9-2 Hanshin.

Guiel then worked the count full before popping up to first base to end the inning.

With Matsui (2.25) making his second appearance of the season for Tokyo, only Toritani was able to reach base as the Tigers had their least productive inning since the first.

The only good thing that happened during the next couple of innings was Takeuchi’s leaping grab of Katsuragi’s line drive over his head. That was a nice play, but they didn’t show it again on that nice, big, shiny scoreboard in center field. Don’t you just love those huge, red car navi advertisements that bookend both sides of the scoreboard?! Sorry.

Lee (3.81) pitched the sixth and got through it without too much pain, and Takagi made it through the seventh without conceding a run in his first appearance of the season. However, the Tokyo bats weren’t able to get anything going on offense.

Takagi stayed in to pitch the eighth as well and struck Asai out to get things started, but Hirano reached safely on a single between first and second base. Luckily Toritani hit into a 3-6-3 double play to finish thing off for Takagi and maintain a triple-bagel ERA.

In the bottom of the eighth Aoki had a double, but the only other excitement was Tanaka reaching second base on a passed ball third strike. I may be mistaken, but I think Kanou did the same thing last night. No runs scored, of course.

Here’s the question of the day: how long before Hagiwara’s (4.93) arm falls off? He’s pitched an awful lot recently, especially now that the team is struggling.

Kanemoto and Arai quickly reached base with no outs to make things interesting. A little bit of Yoneno-can’t-catch-the-ball action later, and suddenly there were runners on second and third.

Guiel came up with another nice defensive play in left to snag a foul ball, but a run scored because he was on his back when he caught it. 10-2 Hanshin.

And that’s how things ended. Both Fukuchi and Kawabata had three hits apiece, and both Guiel and Tanaka added a pair each, but the Swallows were found lacking in their ability to bring runners around. The overall discipline at the plate with runners in scoring position appears to be backtracking, but that’s likely just because there are so many backups playing at the moment.

To be fair to Ichiba, I don’t think that this debacle was totally his fault. First of all, Aikawa should have been catching. That might have helped a little bit. Secondly, he was keeping his pitches down, and that’s why a lot of them ended up in the dirt. But at least they were down. Finally, if that first Hatakeyama error hadn’t happened, then there may have been a very different result because Ichiba would have gotten out of the third unscathed. That second error didn’t help either.

But the guy still needs a lot of work. Unfortunately, it’s likely that he’ll get sent down to the farm team after tonight’s performance, and that’s not really going to help a whole lot. Who knows, though, maybe he can spend some time figuring out how to locate his pitches against less accomplished hitters, and then return with a bit more confidence in late September.

In the end, it took Ichiba 85 pitches to get through three innings. That’s not great. And it’s not good either. Six earned runs crossed home plate on only six hits, three of which were home runs. He also issued three walks. His record now stands at 1 win against five losses, and his ERA is 7.89, which is roughly the same as Dave’s fitted hat size.

Hanshin’s Kubo had a decent outing and also deserves some credit for keeping runs off the board. Hopefully we’ll have our normal lineup in there the next time we face him.

A disaster-riddled series now awaits the birds as Yomiuri travels down the Sobu line for a three-game series starting tomorrow night at 6pm. Fun fun.

]]> http://tokyoswallows.com/2009/08/20/82009-hanshin-home/feed/ 0 http://tokyoswallows.com/2009/08/18/81809-hanshin-home/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=81809-hanshin-home http://tokyoswallows.com/2009/08/18/81809-hanshin-home/#comments Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:31:52 +0000 Christopher Pellegrini http://tokyoswallows.com/?p=4506 August 18th, 2009

Hanshin Tigers 4

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 1

Streak: Lost 1     Last 5:  LLLWL

(Jingu Stadium)

Let it never be said that chances weren’t created in this game. Tokyo put plenty of runners on base, but they were phenomenally unsuccessful at getting them to cross home plate. Such is the overriding theme of this game report.

I will say, however, that I did meet a trio of very nice people at the game today, so it wasn’t all bad.

Ishikawa started this one for the birds, and he sat the Tigers down quick in the top of the first. Real quick.

In the Swallows’ first, Kawashima led things off with an infield single that ended up as a two-bagger when the throw from third bounced past Brazell at first. Fukuchi immediately started flashing the bunt and was awarded with two quick strikes. He struck out swinging.

**Just a thought, but we really need to start keeping track of how many times attempting to bunt puts the batter on their heels and works out to be a wasted at-bat anyway (as in the case mentioned above). It seems to happen a lot to us, but that’s probably partly because we happen to bunt more than most other teams in the world Japan.

With Kawashima on second and one out, Aoki moved him over with a fly ball to right. Unfortunately, Hatakeyama played copycat and also hit a fly ball to right, so the first runner of the evening was stranded. Yippee!

Arai contributed the initial bit of damage by collecting both the Tigers’ first hit, rbi, and run of the game. He pelted a gimme pitch over the left field wall with one out in the second. Sakurai also reached base on a two-out single to left, but Yano grounded out to second to end the threat of a second run scoring. 1-0 Tigers.

Following some other-worldly patience at the plate the other night in which he walked three times in a row, Guiel drew another full-count walk in his first at-bat this evening.

Takeuchi proceeded to foul off four pitches before a hit and run was called and a rather tough bouncer was lined right at Brazell which he couldn’t get his glove on. Brazell was, of course (because if he’s a foreign power-hitter, then it must have been his fault for not coming up with it!), charged with an error. Guiel moved over to third as the ball bounced into right, and then Takeuchi also moved over a bag when Tanaka took a pitch in the back.

So it was the slumping Aikawa’s turn at the plate with no outs and the bases loaded. Double play?

Believe it or not…no. After working the count full, Aikawa managed to draw a walk and push Guiel across home plate. All square at 1-1.

Ishikawa then grounded out (force at home), but luckily he was able to beat the double-play throw to first. Kawashima came up and hastily punted the first pitch he saw straight up in the air. It eventually landed in very shallow right field.

With the bases still loaded and two outs, Fukuchi grounded out to short. Four stranded runners so far. Nice nice!

Aoki led off with a single in the bottom of the third, but nobody was able to find a way to bring him home. Stranded runner number five. And there would be several more.

But before Tokyo could strand more runners, Ishikawa got into some serious trouble in the top of the fourth when he started off by walking Kanemoto and plunking Arai.

Brazell then doubled to bring Kanemoto home. The first out wasn’t recorded until Yano grounded out to second. After that, Andou politely struck out for out number two, and then Akahoshi grounded out harmlessly as well to limit the damage. 2-1 Tigers.

With two outs in the bottom of the fourth, Ishikawa had a single to shallow left, but that was it in terms of highlights.

Aoki came up with a one out double to get things started in the bottom of the fifth, but again the Swallows weren’t able to create any magic.

Sakurai gave the visitors another run on a two out, full-count bomb to left. Ishikawa gives up homers with the best of them, that’s for sure. 3-1 Tigers.

For the record, Ishikawa leads the team in home runs allowed (21), and he leads the league in earned runs (57).

Lee came in to pitch the top of the seventh and things got rough pretty quick. A leadoff hit by Asai was followed by a terribly congested fielding effort that allowed Akahoshi to reach base as well. Hirano moved the runners over on a groundout, so it was runners on second and third with one out. Toritani then struck out after fouling off about 500 pitches. Or maybe five. Whatever.

After a team conference on the mound it was time to go for out number three.

Kanemoto, thankfully, popped up to shallow right. Phew!

With Egusa on the mound, Kawashima came to the plate to start the Swallows seventh. Keizo led off with a push bunt down toward first base that allowed him to reach base safely. The very next offering from Egusa was bouncy enough that Kawashima was able to move over to second freely.

Unfortunately, Kawashima got a little bit greedy on Fukuchi’s liner to short and was consumed in the rundown. Another wasted opportunity.

With Fukuchi on first, Aoki came to the plate in a rather critical situation. But yet another passed ball allowed the runner to move to second. Too bad kawashima wasn’t still on base…

But it didn’t really matter because Aoki flew out to center. So it was two outs, Fukuchi on second, and Hatakeyama at the plate. You will remember that he has been developing his pop fly skills as of late, and the inning ended on a very soft fly ball that was caught on the line in right field. Yet another runner stranded.

Hagiwara came on to pitch the top of the eighth. Arai popped up to center before Brazell drilled the first pitch he saw into the right field bleachers. I’m very nearly about to start calling Aikawa to task on his pitch calling because the number of solo home runs is getting a bit disturbing. Luckily they were all solo home runs. Sakurai struck out, but it was hardly consolation for the number of long balls offered up to the folks in yellow and pink.

Fortunately, Yano didn’t put up much of a fight, and Hagiwara was through with that matchup in three pitches.

4-1 Hanshin.

Atchison came in to defend for the Swallows’ eighth. His no-nonsense, ‘I can throw 100 pitches in 100 seconds’ approach worked wonders against the middle of the Tokyo lineup, and everyone from Guiel to Tanaka were retired inside of 2.5 seconds. Why nobody tried to change the pace up a little and throw him off his rhythm is beyond me.

Oshimoto came in to pitch the ninth for the Swallows. Hiyama flew out to right on the first pitch he saw, and then Akahoshi eventually, after like 30 foul balls (seriously), grounded out to second. Hirano then lined out to left field.

With the score at 4-1, and Aikawa the next scheduled batter at the plate, it was only logical that the ridiculously ineffective catcher would be replaced in the batting order against Hanshin’s closer, Fujikawa. Even Takada was able to surmise the ridiculousness of the matchup. Noguchi came in to face Hanshin’s most fearsome right arm.

Unfortunately, h quickly got behind in the count and probably discovered just a bit too late that it’s probably best not to swing at all. Strike three was swift and nearly invisible.

Iihara came in for the next round of arresting heaters. Yasushi watched three successive pitches sail wide of the mark before taking a pitch for strike one. He seemed, at first, to understand that swinging is not really necessary. However, he hacked away at the next two pitches to strike out easily and let Fujikawa off the hook.

Kawashima also swiped at the first pitch he saw and fouled it off. Strike two was a very generous call for Fujikawa on a glacially-paced pitch that was a bit high. Keizo avoided the next two pitches, but he couldn’t resist the next offering and he grounded it weakly to third to end the game.

Final: 4-1 Tigers.

Only Kawashima and Aoki had a mult-hit game to tonight. I’m kind of getting used to typing that now.

Additionally, and to his credit, Aikawa drew a pair of walks.

Other than that, not a whole lot happened.

The birds were found wanting in their ability to bring runners around from third this evening. Miyamoto and D’Antona were very sorely missed, and they will continue to be missed during the rest of this week. The Swallows face two more games against the Tigers, and then a trio of home games against cross-town rival, Yomiuri, to finish off a crucial six-game home stand.

Yokohama BayStars 13

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 2

Streak: Lost 2  Last 5: LLWLL

(Jingu Stadium)

Wow. That was embarrassing.

Tokyo’s lineup:

1. Fukuchi (LF)
2. Tanaka (2B)
3. Aoki (CF)
4. Hatakeyama (1B)
5. Guiel (RF)
6. Miyamoto (3B)
7. Aikawa (C)
8. Kawashima (SS)
9. Takaichi (P)

A lot of things went wrong tonight. The first bad decision was made by whoever thought that Takaichi was ready to start a game on the first team. He wasn’t exactly effective when he was up on the first team earlier this year, hence his three month visit to the farm team for “readjustment”, and in 12 appearances in the minors his ERA is over four and a half. By my calculations, that works out to somewhere between a 6-7.00 ERA in the pros.

And to make room for him, Nakao was dropped. The poor kid was called up so that he could get precisely two at-bats in two very critical late-game situations, which it’s probably safe to say he wasn’t prepared for, and then sees his shot go up in smoke after only a week on the top team. Today’s game would have been the perfect opportunity for him to get some game time in. In short, what was the point of bringing him up to begin with?

Another thing that hurt was the fact that D’Antona’s injury is serious enough that he has been dropped as well (which essentially means that he’s on the DL). Could this mean that Barrett will get another shot at the top team?

Anyways, let me briefly describe the damage visited on us by the hot-hitting BayStars.

I think it’s easiest to sum up if we look at the pitchers that made appearances today:

Inning(s) – Pitcher – (ERA) – earned runs

1.1                Takaichi (9.64) 4
1.2 – 5          Hagiwara (4.71) 3
6                   Lee (4.13) 3
7                   Oshimoto (3.00)
8 – 9             Kamada (5.14) 3

[Note: 1.1 equals 1 and 1/3 innings]

There. I think that pretty well sums it up.

The BayStars pounded out 21 hits and looked like a club with a lot of depth today. Even guys with sub-.200 averages were hitting home runs (i.e. Yamazaki and his three run dinger in the ninth), and Yokohama’s starter, Miura, had himself a nice little RBI single in the second.

The Tokyo bats, on the other hand, were kept very, very quiet by Miura despite the two fielding errors committed by Yokohama.

In fact, the only time Tokyo was able to score in this contest was on plays connected to fielding errors. It was pretty weak all around.

Kawashima had a great day at the plate, going 3-4, and Aoki also contributed a pair of singles, but no other starter was able to get a clean hit off of Miura.

All in all, Tokyo was absolutely destroyed by the BayStars, and they lost yet another series against the sixth-place team.

Takada continues to treat these games as though they’re “friendlies” or something and he loves to try out players whom he has recently promoted. The major problem here, of course, is that we have not been able to beat the BayStars this season, so it doesn’t really matter what place in the standings they occupy. Wouldn’t it have been better to bring Takaichi in as a middle reliever after Muranaka started throwing meatballs?

The Swallows better figure something out quickly because they are now off to Nagoya to take on the in-form Dragons this weekend.

The way Tokyo is playing right now, this could definitely be ugly.

Yokohama BayStars 4

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3

Streak: Lost 1  Last 5: LLLWL

(Jingu Stadium)

Much like last week’s series, the birds opened this one with a win last night. Would they be able to make it two in a row?

Just to make things interesting, Ichiba was in for his second start since reappearing in the first team clubhouse last week.

The lineup featured the usual suspects. Aoki seems to be back in center field for good while also staying in the number three spot quite regularly.

Tokyo’s lineup:

1. Fukuchi (LF)
2. Tanaka (2B)
3. Aoki (CF)
4. D’Antona (1B)
5. Guiel (RF)
6. Miyamoto (3B)
7. Aikawa (C)
8. Kawashima (SS)
9. Ichiba (P)

Ichiba started well, actually, and he got through the first three innings without giving up a hit (although he walked two.)

The only thing of consequence to occur early on was D’Antona getting injured. He left the game after lunging to reach a throw to first and appeared to pull a muscle in his leg. Hopefully it’s nothing too serious.

The Baystars finally got to Ichiba in the fourth care of some good base-running and hitting. 2-0 Yokohama.

Kawashima came up with an RBI groundout in the fifth to get the score to 2-1, but the BayStars added another run in the top of the sixth when Ishikawa notched his second rbi of the evening. 3-1 BayStars. Hagiwara got the earned run on that one.

The birds pulled level in the seventh when Guiel’s leadoff single was followed by a Miyamoto home run (his fifth of the season.) 3-3.

The rally was cut short after Aikawa drew a walk (which only happens once in a very long while these days), and Kawashima bunted to move him over. As we’ve seen a lot lately, no runs scored after that.

Both teams got out of jail free a couple of time between the eighth and the 11th, but no more runs scored. Many, many more pitchers came to the mound for both teams.

Here’s who pitched for the Swallows:

Inning(s) – Pitcher – (ERA) – earned runs

1-5           Ichiba (7.01) 2
6               Hagiwara (4.41) 1
7               Lee (3.13)
8               Igarashi (2.70)
9               Lim (0.40)
10            Matsuoka (2.86)
11             Oshimoto (3.09)
12             Kamada (1.80) 1

Kamada, fresh off of his call-up to the first team yesterday, had the pleasure of facing Uchikawa in that fateful 12th. With two outs, Uchikawa launched one over the wall in left to put the BayStars up 4-3.

And unlike yesterday, the birds weren’t able to make a comeback. With one out and first and second occupied by Tanaka and Fukuchi, Aoki wasn’t able to replicate last night’s heroics and hit into a game-ending double play.

Tokyo’s offensive player of the game was definitely Miyamoto who went 3-5 with two RBIs and was a triple shy of hitting for the cycle.

Tanaka, Aoki, Noguchi, and Guiel had two hits each as well.

But Tokyo hit into three double plays tonight, and that never helps. All three of them were inning-enders for the birds, so that definitely hurt.

Kamada took the loss in his first appearance back on the first team.

Game three of this series is tomorrow night at 6 p.m.

See you tomorrow night for Muranaka’s (?) next attempt to stay in a game longer than five innings.

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 7

Yomiuri Giants 10

Streak: Lost 3   Last 5: LWLLL

(Tokyo Dome)

The birds fought back pretty hard, but boy oh boy this was a rough one.

Tokyo’s lineup:

1. Aoki (CF)
2. Tanaka (2B)
3. Iihara (LF)
4. D’Antona (1B)
5. Guiel (RF)
6. Miyamoto (3B)
7. Aikawa (C)
8. Kawashima (SS)
9. Tateyama (P)

The whole bunting-in-the-first-inning thing has worked reasonably well so far this season, but the run scored early on didn’t make a whole lot of difference. Thank you, Iihara, for the run-scoring base hit. 1-0 Swallows.

But Yomiuri would come back with four runs in the bottom of the first to mark the beginning of a phenomenally ugly outing for Tateyama which included five hits in that inning–easily his most painful start of the last year. 4-1 Yomiuri.

Tokyo got one back in the sixth on an Iihara solo home run (his third round tripper and second hit of the game), but Yomiuri had a big half just a little later.

To set the tone, Abe led off with a solo home, his 14th, just to set the tone. Then, with two men on, Sakamoto hit his 13th of the season into the stands in left. Two home runs in the same inning. 6-2 Yomiuri.

Then Kida came on to replace Tateyama. It didn’t work out very well.

Matsumoto found his way on base with a single before Ogasawara hit the inning’s third home run, this one his 14th, to make it 10-2 orange twerps.

The Swallows would come back with a bit of a surprising burst in the eighth inning when Micheal Nakamura (yes, his first name is spelled correctly) let Iihara (his third hit of the game) and D’Antona reach base with consecutive singles before he was able to record the second out. Fukata came in to give up a bases-loading walk (to pinch-hitter, Hatakeyama) before another pinch-hitter, the free-swinging Kawamoto, boomed one into the left field bleachers. Surprise grand slam.  10-6 home team.

And the birds were able to squeeze one more out of the game in the ninth when Aoki’s single was cashed in on Noguchi’s (welcome back!) rbi hit. 10-7.

But that was as close as Tokyo was able to get.

The best night on offense was definitely performed by Iihara who had two rbi’s off of his 3-5 game.

The only other player with a multi-hit game was D’Antona who went 2-4.

Tateyama (3.41) ended up with his third loss of the season while giving up eight earned runs off of 10 hits. He had six K’s, one walk, and a single HBP, but it took him 104 pitches to get through five and one-third innings.

Kida (5.74) finished up the sixth while Hagiwara (4.26) and Oshimoto (2.91) pitched the last two innings without conceding any more runs.

Ugh. That wasn’t fun.

The saga continues tomorrow night when game two of the series kicks off at Tokyo Dome. 6pm. Can’t wait.

Chunichi Dragons 6

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 5

Streak: Lost 1    Last 5: LLWWL

(Jingu Stadium)

A win was definitely within reach tonight, but a combination of too much bunting and a couple more unfortunate calls by the umpiring staff put the kaibosh on this extra-innings game.

Tokyo’s Lineup:

1. Aoki (LF)
2. Tanaka (2B)
3. Fukuchi (CF)
4. D’Antona (1B)
5. Guiel (RF)
6. Hatakeyama (3B)
7. Aikawa (C)
8. Kawashima (SS)
9. Yoshinori (P)

Much like last night, there was way too much bunting going on. Unlike last night, none of the bunts were attempted by a pitcher.

Speaking of pitchers, Tokyo’s starter, Yoshinori (5-5, 3.53), threw reasonably well this evening. His slider was deadly at times, and his blister-prone hand lasted six innings of seven hit, three run baseball. He struck out and walked two over a regimen of 96 pitches. He did not end up factoring in the decision.

As this game lasted 11 innings, we got to see a whole lot of other pitchers out there on the mound. The following pitchers threw the seventh through the tenth innings: Matsuoka (35 appearances; 4 wins-0 losses-0 saves; 2.63 ERA); Igarashi (40; 2-2-1; 2.98); Lim (41; 3-1-24; 0.22); and Oshimoto (29; 1-2-0; 2.81). Those four guys pitched an inning each and didn’t allow any runs to cross home plate.

One worrying thing about that quartet is that three of them have at least 35 appearances already this season. I’ve blamed Takada before for using them when it really wasn’t necessary (maybe it’s part of his adherence to the new ‘Just Play to Win’ mantra?), but I think it’s also fair to lay some of the blame on the offense for not being more disciplined at the plate and wasting opportunities. However, Takada is again implicable because he so often asks his hitters to give outs away (tons of bunts, hit-and-runs, and predictable steals). Naturally, there’s only so much you can do when your manager forces you to give outs away two or three times a game.

Or four. There were four bunts yesterday and another four today. Kawashima’s strikeout in the eigth was intended to be a bunt, but forkballs are pretty damned hard to dig out of the dirt sometimes. He ended up striking out.

Tokyo again got on the board first in this game. Chunichi starter, Nakata, loaded the bases for Hatakeyama to poke one into left. Only Tanaka scored for 1-0 Tokyo.

Chunichi scored one in the second and a pair in the third to flip the tables and make it 3-1 Chunichi.

Tokyo got one back in the bottom of the third when Aikawa’s double plated D’Antona who had earlier singled. 3-2 Chunichi.

Tanaka’s bunt in the fourth didn’t help net the team any runs, but Takada tried again in the sixth. With Kawashima beating out the throw to first on an infield single (he ate a lot of dirt on that head-first slide), Takada pulled Yoshinori in favor of a pinch-hitter-bunter. Keizo did eventually score, but it was due to two consecutive wild pitches by Nakata that allowed him to cross home plate uncontested, yet again negating the value of the bunt. That tied the game at 3-3, but that was it for the inning in terms of offense.

The only thing that Takada gets credit for is the fact that he came out of the dugout for the third game in a row. He jogged out on Friday to very politely question a call at second base (and make sure that Keizo didn’t get tossed after he blew a fuse) and then made it about two paces out of the dugout last night to ask about Yuuki’s ejection for pegging Tanishige in the head with an errant pitch.

Tonight he came out when Aoki was out on a called third strike in which the umpire decided that Aoki hadn’t completely checked his swing on the full count pitch. This was after D’Antona had gotten a little upset over a called strike in an earlier at-bat–to be fair, there was a whole lot of this crap going on in this series, and I saw it happen to Chunichi as well. Bad calls from behind the plate have happened before, and until computers are officially used to control the strike zone, they’ll happen again.

I obviously wasn’t at the correct angle to comment on the location of the pitches in question, and the replays on TV don’t help much either since the cameras in Japan are always placed several degrees off-center behind the pitcher towards the left field foul pole.  However, I can say that the check-swing, called third strike on Aoki was highly suspect.

And Takada doesn’t really question calls–he prefers to discuss them. He’s definitely not a manager that the umpiring crew feels that they need to worry about. For the record, and as is expected, his discussions in all three games yielded unsatisfactory results if you’re a Tokyo supporter.

Tokyo bunted again in the bottom of the ninth. This time it was Fukuchi laying one down so that Tanaka could move over to second. And even though they were aided by a two-out intentional walking of Guiel, the birds still weren’t able to score a run. Not that it’s really a surprise given all the empirical evidence (a mountain of data that grows with every passing baseball season) stating that having players other than pitchers bunt is a statistically-untenable idea. Maybe it’s about time to do a follow up on last season’s analysis of sac bunts…

Things got ugly for Tokyo in the top of the 11th with Hagiwara (28; 1-1-0; 4.41) on the mound. Not an ideal situation for Tokyo against a decent offense like Chunichi. Dragons centerfielder, Fujii, had his fourth hit of the evening to get things started for the visitors before Hidenori bunted him over to second (that was Chunichi’s only bunt of the game). Tanishige then struck out to make it look like Hagiwara might survive what was likely the highest-stakes pitching situation he’s had since arriving in Tokyo last year.

However, with two outs Hagiwara walked Koike and then loaded the bases on a single to Ibata. Araki then cleared the bases with a double. 6-3 Chunichi.

Hagiwara was quickly booted and Lee (18; 0-0-0; 3.32) came in to try and find the last out. He beaned Morino for good measure before getting Blanco to pop up for out number three.

The boys put up a bit of a fight, but it was never going to be easy with Iwase on the mound. Aoki and Tanaka started with consecutive doubles that got one run back, and then D’Antona added a third double with one out that brought Tanaka around to score.  However, Guiel and Hatakeyama were unable to extend the rally, and the game ended with a scoreline of 6-5 Chunichi.

Due to all of the bunting that went on and the resulting squandered chances, I have no choice but to hold Takada more responsible than I normally do.

TAKADA COUNT: 3

But let’s look on the bright side for a moment because a couple of guys had decent games.

Yoshinori pitched decently considering the weather, and Tanaka went 3-4 with three doubles, a walk, one rbi, and two runs scored.

Despite Aoki’s exasperation after the aforementioned strikeout, plus his getting thrown out at third on a baserunning gamble (absolutely perfect throw by Blanco, by the way), the guy had a decent day at the plate going 2-4, scoring once, and getting walked twice.

Also, Aikawa and D’Antona both had 2-5, 1 rbi nights with D’Antona also adding a walk.

So in the end Tokyo won the series against Chunichi but lost game three in the most painful of manners.

They now have a day off before a three game series in Yokohama kicks off on Tuesday.