Yomiuri Giants 5 at Yakult Swallows 2 - September 15, 2010

With my friend Meg in town finishing up her 12 parks tour of Japan, I decided to make a final visit to Jingu this year to join her in watching the Giants and Swallows. Yakult is technically still alive in the playoff race, lying 6.5 games back of 3rd place Yomiuri with 18 games left, but another loss would pretty much seal their fate. And so it came to pass.

The Game

Yoshinori Satoh got the start for Yakult against Tetsuya Utsumi. Satoh started by walking the first two Giants on 8 straight balls and I thought we were in for a long night, but he struck out Michihiro Ogasawara and Alex Ramirez before inducing Shinnosuke Abe to fly out. He then settled down, yielding just two hits and a walk over the next four frames.

Norichika Aoki pops out

Meanwhile Utsumi was also solid and we were still scoreless after 5 innings. That's when the rains came, just a light mist at the start but turning into a steady drizzle shortly thereafter. This seemed to affect the pitching as the Giants exploded for 4 runs in the 6th, including a 3-run double from Edgar Gonzalez (below grounding out in an earlier at-bat).

Yakult replied with a 2-run homer from Kazuhiro Hatakeyama in their half of the 6th. But Utsumi was replaced one batter later and the Giants relief corps, including ex-Blue Jay Micheal Nakamura, proceeded to shut down Yakult the rest of the way.

Pinch hitter Kenji Yano added a solo homer in the 9th for a bit of insurance as the Giants won 5-2 in a well-played if somewhat pedestrian affair. Yakult is still 6.5 games out of 3rd though as Hanshin lost, but I doubt they can make up the ground. Really, since they are a game under .500 (61-62-4), they shouldn't be part of any playoff discussion but that's what happens when half the teams make the post-season.

Minor League pennant race

The rains from last night have continued today and the minor league game between Shonan Searex and Giants has been postponed. This is unfortunate as the Eastern League is having a great pennant race. Yomiuri leads by a half-game over 3 other teams including the Searex with just a week left in the season. What's really interesting is that the second place teams are all 55-45 with a different number of ties, hence the different number of games left. The winner will play in a 1-game championship with the Western League in Niigata on October 2nd. I'll keep you posted; here's hoping the baby Giants are knocked off by somebody in the next week.

Update (Sept 17): The game has been rescheduled for Saturday, September 25th. It'll be the last game of the season and hence the last Searex game ever, and if the teams are still close, might decide the pennant. There's also a futsal game nearby after that so I'll try to catch both.

Best,

Sean

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Yokohama Bay Stars 6 at Yakult Swallows 7 - August 25, 2010

An Australian friend of mine who is in Japan for a few months had never seen a baseball game and so I offered to take him and some colleagues to a Yakult Swallows-Yokohama Bay Stars tilt. Both teams are in the bottom half of the Central League, although Yakult has recently gone on a tear to move back to .500 after being 19 games below just a few weeks ago. Yokohama is just horrid though, coming in at 37-72, barely able to win 1/3 of their games. On paper, not a particularly enticing battle, but it turned out to be quite interesting.

Throwback Uniforms

The Central League has been putting on a promotion called the Old Uniform Series where teams where retro uniforms. The mid-week series last week and this were used to showcase these old-style threads. The Swallows broke out their home unis from 1994-98 which was when they were a top team, winning two Nippon Series. For me, this was a trip down memory lane as I watched them win the 1997 championship in these uniforms. That's starter Masanori Ishikawa sporting the fancy duds below.

The Bay Stars returned to their roots as the Yokohama Taiyo Whales, which was their name from 1978-1992. As you can see in the shot of starter Kentaro Takasaki, these retro uniforms are understated, with the W cap signifying Whales and Taiyo on the left sleeve. Very nice.

I always enjoy this type of promotion as it gives fans a chance to see something different. Of course, part of the reason behind this is to sell the uniforms and hats to those same fans, but most seemed more than capable of resisting the temptation.

The Game

Takasaki was making his first start of the season while Ishikawa was on a 7-game winning streak, so it looked like an easy Yakult victory. But Yokohama struck first when one-time Pirate Jose Castillo (below) slammed a two-run homer in the second inning.

Yakult wasted no time in responding though, as Norichika Aoki rapped a 2-run single in the bottom half to tie things up. In the third, the Swallows continued their attack. Three singles and a walk led to another run and loaded bases as Ishikawa came to the plate with two out. He fouled off a couple of touch pitches before bouncing one up the middle for two more runs. Great to see the starting pitcher helping himself out like that. That was the end of the evening for Takasaki who could only last 2 2/3 innings. His replacement was Kazuya Takamiya, who promptly gave up another run-scoring knock to Aoki (below) to make it 6-2 Yakult.

In the 6th, Aoki led off with another single, his 4th hit of the game, bringing his average up to .350, second in the CL. After a sacrifice and a walk, Josh Whitesell singled home Aoki to make it 7-2 and the rout was on. Or so I thought.

Ishikawa had been cruising, having given up just 3 hits in 6 innings. But in the 7th, Termel Sledge led off with a single and Castillo doubled him to third. With two out, pinch-hitter Tatsuhiko Kinjoh slapped a base hit to center to score both runners and bring Yokohama within 3. Ishikawa was removed and Takehiko Oshimoto got the last out of the frame.

In the 8th, Yakult brought in set-up man Kenichi Matsuoka who hit Kazuya Fujita to start things off. It was the fourth hit batsman of the game and I thought it might have been intentional, although no warnings were given. I don't think that Japanese players have the same "code" in the States so it could just be a coincidence, but whatever the case, it was a bad play. Brett Harper (below), a recent acquisition from Sacramento of the PCL who had hit 12 homers in 36 games, came up and crushed a pitch to right field. Suddenly it was 7-6!

The Bay Stars fans were reinvigorated and the team seemed ready to do more damage. But Shuichi Murata and Sledge both flew out to left swinging at the first pitch and the rally fizzled. Although Tatsuya Shimozono doubled and Castillo walked to put runners on first and second, Matsuoka induced pinch-hitter Naoto Inada to pop out and leave the runners stranded.

In the 9th, closer Chang-Yong Lim came in and needed just 9 pitches to retire the side in order for his 27th save of the season. Harper was left in the on-deck circle, much to Yokohama's chagrin.

The game took a ridiculous 3:32 but thankfully Yokohama made it interesting in the end. It was a beautiful night though and my Aussie buddy thoroughly enjoyed himself, though I'm sure he still thinks cricket is the better sport.

Next Up

Hiroshima next week and then back to work for a couple of months to save up for a big December hockey trip. With the AHL schedule finally released, I'm putting the finishing touches on that jaunt, with the Winter Classic in Pittsburgh and the World Juniors in Buffalo just two of the highlights. I'll have a post with the full schedule in a couple of days, so check back then.

Best,

Sean

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Tokyo Crosstown Doubleheader - June 24, 2010

Yesterday was a perfect day for baseball. I had already arranged to meet a friend for the evenings Giants-Swallows game at Jingu so I decided to make it a doubleheader by biking down to Ota Stadium to watch a Tokyo Industrial League tournament game in the afternoon.

There were two games scheduled, but with the World Cup games going on overnight here (yay Japan!), mornings are not an option, so I only made it for the afternoon game featuring JR East and Sega Sammy.

Ota Stadium

Ota Stadium is located in the southern part of Tokyo, close to Haneda airport. The closest train station is Ryutsu Center on the monorail, just two stops from the airport, but the stadium is located next to a long bike trail that takes you from Tennozu Isle all the way to Jonanjima. I used to use the trail here regularly and had passed this stadium hundreds of times but had yet to venture inside.

It is used for a variety of baseball games, and like most of these smaller stadiums, has no outfield seats. The seats extend down the lines a fair bit, and there is a small canopy shading the seats directly behind the plate. The field is a bright green that is almost blinding when you first get in. The dimensions are similar to other stadiums at 325 feet down the lines and 400 to center. You can walk around the top of the seating deck which provides nice views of the surrounding area, including Oi Racecourse, a nearby horse racing track.

Next door is a smaller stadium that looks to be a soccer field and had players practicing lacrosse, which I found interesting. There's not much more than that. It's not a place that is easy to get to or that has regularly scheduled games, so I'm glad I got to finally catch a game here (and up the stadium total to 304).

You can see a plane on approach just to the top left of the scoreboard

The Game

The game featured two teams who had won their first round matches. I missed the first out so decided not to keep score (which turned out to be a fortuitous choice as I had to leave early to make it to the nightcap). JR East broke open the scoring in the 3rd when Akira Matsumoto (shown above) cranked a 3-run shot to left. Sega Sammy got one back in the bottom half on a Takuya Jukuura RBI single (shown below).

The game progressed rather slowly for a few innings until JR East added a run on a great hustle play in the 7th. With a man on first, the batter attempted a sacrifice. The pitcher fielded it and threw wildly to first. The ball bounced into shallow right and the runner rounded third, heading for home. He just beat the throw and that made it 5-1. The bunter also scored on a single later in the frame and that was the final, 6-1.

Not a very exciting game, lots of pitching changes and Sega Sammy must have left 10 men on base. With the win, JR East faces Tokyo Gas next Monday at Jingu with the winner going on to the top tournament. Sega Sammy played a loser's bracket game today and were eliminated.

Tolerant Umpires

The most interesting incident in today's game involved the Sega Sammy manager arguing a call. He felt like his fielder had been interfered with and came out to physically show the umpire. He bumped the ump not once but twice to demonstrate what he felt had transpired on the field. Yet he wasn't tossed, the umpire just explained how he saw it while the manager steamed. Generally in Japan, umpires are much more tolerant and managers or players rarely get ejected.

There's a famous incident where American umpire Mike DiMuro, who was here as part of an experiment to improve umpiring standards in the NPB in 1997, ejected a player for arguing balls and strikes. He was surrounded by the players and pushed, no doubt causing him great consternation. That just doesn't happen in the States, where umpires are respected to some extent and have much more power. No punishment was given to any of the players and DiMuro subsequently resigned, ending the experiment.

Giants beat the Swallows

After biking back home and cleaning up, I headed over to Jingu to meet my friend Greg. He had never been to the stadium before despite living here for over 10 years. I told him I would bring him to a game, and we decided to check out the Yomiuri Giants. Weather was perfect and plenty of tickets were available at the box office. Given that the Swallows are in last, a full 14 games behind the league-leading Giants, this might not be surprising.

We ended up sitting in the second row just beyond first base. I didn't take many pictures as the screen was bothersome and the angle wasn't that good as you can see above. As for the game, the Giants won 4-2 behind two homers from reigning MVP and one-time Swallow Alex Ramirez and a two-run shot from Hisayoshi Chono. Chono is an interesting case - he was drafted twice previously but only wanted to play for the Giants. So he opted to play industrial ball for two years, leading Honda to the title last season. Finally, Yomiuri drafted him and he's been playing all year, although hitting only .245 with 9 homers. Of course, homer number 9 gave the Giants the winning runs yesterday. Ugh. Still, it takes guts to stick with your favourite team, even if it makes you a frontrunner.

It was nice to be back in Jingu to watch the Swallows but the game itself was thoroughly unenjoyable, taking 3:07 to reach its inevitable conclusion.

Next Up

That's pretty much it for Japanese baseball this year, at least in Tokyo. There's no stadium here that I still need to see and the teams I cheer for are horrible (as seems to be the case in every sport).

I'm off to Minneapolis and Iowa in two weeks and will be enjoying the World Cup in the meantime. Look for a post on that in the next couple of days and everyone please cheer on Japan!

Best,

Sean

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