Been Caught Stealin'

I just wanted to point this out since it might look odd to anyone reading the box scores:

Friday night, Fighters 3, Buffaloes 2

In the first inning, you'll notice the sequence of Hichori walked, Kensuke walked, Inaba walked, Shinji Takahashi (playing first base again!) hit a popout to center, and that's the inning. Sounds odd, right? Well, Hichori got caught stealing second for one out... and then Kensuke got caught stealing second for the second out. So when Inaba walked, that didn't load the bases but instead put one runner on with two out. Hence, the three walks and a fly out for one inning. I know, you were also hoping for some kind of bizarre triple play on the pop out, weren't you?

Also, because I haven't seen it in English anywhere (though I don't always read enough articles), you know the back-to-back-to-back home runs the other night by the Giants? Off Kenshin Kawakami? If I'm reading this correctly, the last time the Giants had back-to-back-to-back homers was on June 19, 1999 -- Kiyohara, batting fourth, Yoshinobu, batting fifth, and Domingo Martinez, batting sixth. (Matsui was batting third that day, but wasn't part of the festivities.)

I got home tonight after work just in time to NOT see any of the Giants-Tigers came on TV, as it ended relatively early. Instead, though, I saw a couple of NHK history clips of the old V9 Giants and the 1985 Tigers, and they showed the back-to-back-to-back homeruns of Bass, Kakefu, and Okada. Good timing!

I'm going down to Chiba tomorrow. Please remind me NOT to mention how Shota Ohba completely owned Lotte tonight. I might get punched. But still... SIXTEEN STRIKEOUTS, which is one away from Hideo Nomo's rookie record of 17 in one game. That's amazing. I was saying a few months ago that Ohba even LOOKS like Kazumi Saitoh. Ohba and Kume could really turn out to be the prizes of this year's draft, it seems (even with Kume's bizarre eyebrows).