This one was requested by PositivePaul a few days ago in a USSM thread, basically, to "Marinerize" the original song. Of course, I have a feeling the original song may be a little bit obscure, but ah well, here you go:
A Simple Insultory Philippic (Or How I Was Howard Lincoln'd Into Submission)
To the tune of "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission)" by Simon and Garfunkel
New lyrics by Deanna "Marinerd" Rubin
I've been Mark Teixeira'ed, Juan Rivera'ed,
I've been Vlad Guerrerro'ed, then Pineiro'ed
I've been Grand Salami'ed weekly till I'm blind
I've been George Sherrilled, and imperiled
A columnist from the Everett Herald!
That's not the one you read? Well... nevermind.
I've been Robb Quinlanned, sent to Inland.
I've been Danny Harenned, John McLarenned.
Well, I've played every base I want to play
And I got platooned with Aaron Boone
And all of those splits won't buy me hits
So I take a swing (and then I pray).
I knew a man, who played some ball
He sure thinks that he knows it all
But not the same as you and me!
He's stuck back in history. He's so confused
That when you say "Richie"...
He thinks you're talking about Richie Ashburn!
Whoever he was.
The man ain't got no mojo.
But it's alright, Paul, everybody must get Rohned.
I been Nick Swishered, been silverfishered
Randy Johnson, won't you please come home?
I been pitchered, catchered, right and centered
Been Brad Pennyed and Chris Carpentered
I just discovered somebody nuked the Dome!
Play ball.
I've lost my lineup card, Grover...
Monday, October 16, 2006
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Game Report: Thunderbirds vs. Giants - Slip Sladin' Away
Tonight I took a trip into the world of Other Professional Sports Besides Baseball, attending a Seattle Thunderbirds minor league hockey game with a bunch of my friends. They were playing against the Vancouver Giants, who were undefeated before tonight's game. I took notes on my Sidekick because I figured I'd want to try to piece it together later.
Keep in mind that I know next to nothing about hockey. In fact, I'm pretty sure that everything I know about the sport, I learned while playing Blades of Steel on the Nintendo when I was a kid.
The first obstacle of the evening, however, was that the Key Arena wouldn't let in "professional" cameras, which apparently is now defined as "anything with a detachable lens", which meant I had to go put my camera in a friend's car, since I bussed there. That sort of sucked, and we got to our seats just in time for the faceoff. I'm amazed that I've been able to take my camera into every major and minor league baseball park I've gone to, yet I couldn't bring it in for a minor league hockey game featuring 16-to-20-year-olds, most of whom aren't even eligible for the draft yet (and who, I may note, were born after Blades of Steel came out).
The second obstacle of the evening was trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Fortunately, two of the guys in our group actually know hockey pretty well, and put up with the rest of us continuously firing questions about the game action.
The first thing I learned was what "icing" is, which was useful because it happened a lot. Then, I got to learn a whole lot about the various ways hockey players can inflict penalties on each other, as within the first period of the game, we didn't see anyone actually score a goal, but we did see guys get put in the penalty box for hooking, boarding, tripping, roughing, and high-sticking, and it's often hard to figure out exactly what happened; even our hockey experts in the group would see a play, see a penalty called, and then debate over whether the guy shoving the other guy was boarding or roughing.
The first period ended, and they put an 18-minute counter up on the board, and I wondered why the second period was only 18 minutes, at which point I noticed that everyone was leaving the stands. Ahh, intermission. This is apparently a good excuse to launch several Australian guys across the rink on an inner tube to see if they can knock down 6 bowling pins. No, I'm not making this up. Only one of the three guys actually succeeded; the other two went wide.
I guess the long break makes sense for the players, since hockey looks like it's pretty physically demanding. They keep switching players in and out during the action, too, which makes it even harder to follow who's out there and what they're doing exactly. But on the other hand, the long break gives you plenty of time to get food and drinks. Surprisingly (to me), the concessions were still at ridiculously high prices; I suppose in my mind I think of "minor league" and think of getting dollar hot dogs at Tacoma Rainiers or Everett Aquasox games.
I've also got to take a second out and say that ice hockey referees are amazing. First, they've got to be pretty damn good ice skaters. Second, they have to be good at quickly getting out of the way of pucks, sticks, players, and anything else that flies their way. Several times I'd see a ref jump over a puck, even. Also, they don't seem to be wearing any protective padding aside from a helmet.
Anyway, in the second period it seemed like more of the same for a while; the Seattle guys even had a double advantage when two of the Vancouver guys were out for holding and tripping. But even with the 5-to-3 advantage they couldn't score a goal. I took this moment to ask, "So what's the big difference between watching this level of hockey and the NHL?"
One friend replied, "Well, these guys are younger, still learning a lot of stuff. You'll see a lot more missed passes, wasted shots, etc."
At that moment, one of the Seattle players passed the puck, and the other player missed it. Which sort of explained everything.
With about thirty seconds left on the second period, I don't know why, but I watched the Vancouver guys move across the ice and said, "Oh, check this out," and suddenly one of the Vancouver players took a sharp shot and it went in. Crazy. They announced it as Reese, with an assist by Blum. 1-0 Vancouver.
The period ended shortly after that, and then we were treated to the sight of something called "Chuck-a-Puck", where they drove a minivan onto the middle of the ice, and put a bunch of buckets around it, and then on the count of three, people all threw hockey pucks at the setup, trying to hopefully land one inside the car, but if not, the buckets were decent targets too. It was surreal, watching hundreds of pucks flying through the air, and reminded me of a club I was in back in college, where the "Treasurer's Report" would consist of the treasurer going up to the front of the room and the rest of the club would throw pennies at them for a minute or so, which would go into the club's treasury.
At any rate, you could buy these pucks before the game for $2 each or 3 for $5, and win various prizes if you managed to actually throw them into any of the targets. We did see several go into the sunroof of the minivan; I think those winners got a share of some amount of cash, though I'm not sure.
In the third period, I learned several new ways which guys could be assessed penalties, such as elbowing, slashing, and interference. Checking from behind looked particularly unfun, and took the Vancouver goalie Slade down for a bit. This kid a couple rows behind us, who had to be about 5 years old, started yelling "COME ON, YOU SISSIES!!!" during the injury break, in this high-pitched kid voice which cracked us all up. "GO HOME TO YOUR MOMMIES!!!!"
Ah, minor league.
"Elbowing" was a surprising penalty to me, since when it got called, it looked like the Vancouver guy had literally just punched Seattle's Gagnon in the face for no apparent reason.
Anyway, the Seattle guys ended up with a power play (a term I *did* know from Blades of Steel!) towards the end of the game, and with about 20 seconds left, shortly after I'd even said something like "So, where are y'all going after the game?", out of nowhere, one guy took a shot, which got stuck in the whole cluster of guys that tended to form in front of the net when a shot was close, and then Gagnon re-shot it and it went in! 1-1! Crazy!
It was the 27th shot for Seattle, against 22 shots taken by Vancouver. My friends assured me that in big-league hockey, there would usually be several more goals to go with that many shots.
Anyway, the game went into overtime, and Seattle even ended up almost immediately down a guy when someone was penalized for hooking. We sort of figured the game was pretty much over at that point -- after all, Vancouver was undefeated and the Seattle guys were unlikely to push ahead a goal, right? But, all of a sudden, the action headed down to the other side of the rink, and two crazy things happened: first, Seattle's Durand hit the puck at a weird angle towards the wall; and second, the Vancouver goalie Slade actually tripped and fell over trying to get back to block the goal, having stepped out to try to play the shot... and the puck rebounded off the wall into the now-empty goal, and Seattle won 2-1!
My friends are already talking about trying to drag a bunch of us to another game in the future, so we'll see. It's sort of fun to be the one asking all the questions about the sport, as opposed to being the big know-it-all in the group.
Keep in mind that I know next to nothing about hockey. In fact, I'm pretty sure that everything I know about the sport, I learned while playing Blades of Steel on the Nintendo when I was a kid.
The first obstacle of the evening, however, was that the Key Arena wouldn't let in "professional" cameras, which apparently is now defined as "anything with a detachable lens", which meant I had to go put my camera in a friend's car, since I bussed there. That sort of sucked, and we got to our seats just in time for the faceoff. I'm amazed that I've been able to take my camera into every major and minor league baseball park I've gone to, yet I couldn't bring it in for a minor league hockey game featuring 16-to-20-year-olds, most of whom aren't even eligible for the draft yet (and who, I may note, were born after Blades of Steel came out).
The second obstacle of the evening was trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Fortunately, two of the guys in our group actually know hockey pretty well, and put up with the rest of us continuously firing questions about the game action.
The first thing I learned was what "icing" is, which was useful because it happened a lot. Then, I got to learn a whole lot about the various ways hockey players can inflict penalties on each other, as within the first period of the game, we didn't see anyone actually score a goal, but we did see guys get put in the penalty box for hooking, boarding, tripping, roughing, and high-sticking, and it's often hard to figure out exactly what happened; even our hockey experts in the group would see a play, see a penalty called, and then debate over whether the guy shoving the other guy was boarding or roughing.
The first period ended, and they put an 18-minute counter up on the board, and I wondered why the second period was only 18 minutes, at which point I noticed that everyone was leaving the stands. Ahh, intermission. This is apparently a good excuse to launch several Australian guys across the rink on an inner tube to see if they can knock down 6 bowling pins. No, I'm not making this up. Only one of the three guys actually succeeded; the other two went wide.
I guess the long break makes sense for the players, since hockey looks like it's pretty physically demanding. They keep switching players in and out during the action, too, which makes it even harder to follow who's out there and what they're doing exactly. But on the other hand, the long break gives you plenty of time to get food and drinks. Surprisingly (to me), the concessions were still at ridiculously high prices; I suppose in my mind I think of "minor league" and think of getting dollar hot dogs at Tacoma Rainiers or Everett Aquasox games.
I've also got to take a second out and say that ice hockey referees are amazing. First, they've got to be pretty damn good ice skaters. Second, they have to be good at quickly getting out of the way of pucks, sticks, players, and anything else that flies their way. Several times I'd see a ref jump over a puck, even. Also, they don't seem to be wearing any protective padding aside from a helmet.
Anyway, in the second period it seemed like more of the same for a while; the Seattle guys even had a double advantage when two of the Vancouver guys were out for holding and tripping. But even with the 5-to-3 advantage they couldn't score a goal. I took this moment to ask, "So what's the big difference between watching this level of hockey and the NHL?"
One friend replied, "Well, these guys are younger, still learning a lot of stuff. You'll see a lot more missed passes, wasted shots, etc."
At that moment, one of the Seattle players passed the puck, and the other player missed it. Which sort of explained everything.
With about thirty seconds left on the second period, I don't know why, but I watched the Vancouver guys move across the ice and said, "Oh, check this out," and suddenly one of the Vancouver players took a sharp shot and it went in. Crazy. They announced it as Reese, with an assist by Blum. 1-0 Vancouver.
The period ended shortly after that, and then we were treated to the sight of something called "Chuck-a-Puck", where they drove a minivan onto the middle of the ice, and put a bunch of buckets around it, and then on the count of three, people all threw hockey pucks at the setup, trying to hopefully land one inside the car, but if not, the buckets were decent targets too. It was surreal, watching hundreds of pucks flying through the air, and reminded me of a club I was in back in college, where the "Treasurer's Report" would consist of the treasurer going up to the front of the room and the rest of the club would throw pennies at them for a minute or so, which would go into the club's treasury.
At any rate, you could buy these pucks before the game for $2 each or 3 for $5, and win various prizes if you managed to actually throw them into any of the targets. We did see several go into the sunroof of the minivan; I think those winners got a share of some amount of cash, though I'm not sure.
In the third period, I learned several new ways which guys could be assessed penalties, such as elbowing, slashing, and interference. Checking from behind looked particularly unfun, and took the Vancouver goalie Slade down for a bit. This kid a couple rows behind us, who had to be about 5 years old, started yelling "COME ON, YOU SISSIES!!!" during the injury break, in this high-pitched kid voice which cracked us all up. "GO HOME TO YOUR MOMMIES!!!!"
Ah, minor league.
"Elbowing" was a surprising penalty to me, since when it got called, it looked like the Vancouver guy had literally just punched Seattle's Gagnon in the face for no apparent reason.
Anyway, the Seattle guys ended up with a power play (a term I *did* know from Blades of Steel!) towards the end of the game, and with about 20 seconds left, shortly after I'd even said something like "So, where are y'all going after the game?", out of nowhere, one guy took a shot, which got stuck in the whole cluster of guys that tended to form in front of the net when a shot was close, and then Gagnon re-shot it and it went in! 1-1! Crazy!
It was the 27th shot for Seattle, against 22 shots taken by Vancouver. My friends assured me that in big-league hockey, there would usually be several more goals to go with that many shots.
Anyway, the game went into overtime, and Seattle even ended up almost immediately down a guy when someone was penalized for hooking. We sort of figured the game was pretty much over at that point -- after all, Vancouver was undefeated and the Seattle guys were unlikely to push ahead a goal, right? But, all of a sudden, the action headed down to the other side of the rink, and two crazy things happened: first, Seattle's Durand hit the puck at a weird angle towards the wall; and second, the Vancouver goalie Slade actually tripped and fell over trying to get back to block the goal, having stepped out to try to play the shot... and the puck rebounded off the wall into the now-empty goal, and Seattle won 2-1!
My friends are already talking about trying to drag a bunch of us to another game in the future, so we'll see. It's sort of fun to be the one asking all the questions about the sport, as opposed to being the big know-it-all in the group.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Pizza feeding
I went to the USSM Pizza Feed tonight.
It was pretty fun. I showed off some of my Japan baseball photos (printed out, I still haven't made a lot of headway in preparing a subset of 2500 pictures for online consumption), got to chat with a whole lot of cool people, and was very entertained by Dave, Derek and Jeff. I only had one slice of pizza, though, as the distribution method (of which there was none) didn't work particularly well. Fortunately, unlike some people, I wasn't there for the food. In retrospect, I was there for the Dave Cameron Comedy Hour, I think.
And yeah, I was fully decked out in Fighters gear (Ogasawara jersey, Fighters hat, little "BB Bear" mascot keychain on my sling bag), as threatened. Oddly, there were very few people wearing baseball-related clothes -- Laurie had an awesome "Doyle #32" jersey, and David J. Corcoran was wearing a Meche t-shirt, and that's about all I recall. I suppose everyone else had come over after work as well.
We all got to watch the Mets-Cardinals game on TV, including the part where So Taguchi came in for his second plate appearance of the postseason, and hit another home run, off Billy Wagner. I tried to organize a cheer of "SPEE-ZEE-OH!" at one point, and was fortunately ignored by everyone.
A whole bunch of people off my blogroll were there, including J of Mariner Minors, the inimitable Jason Churchill of Prospect Insider, and Conor Glassey with his new StopTheWave.com t-shirt. The Everett Aquasox announcer, Pat Dillon, was also there, and we had a nice chat about Japanese baseball, which was cool. And of course, frequent commenters msb, Gomez, Dylan, Mike Snow, Brian-no-relation-to-Matt Thornton, Lauren the Token Chick, and others I'm probably forgetting because it's 3am were also around.
And even though he wasn't there, PositivePaul has me started on another song parody. I've been churning it in my head since this morning, maybe I'll write it this weekend.
Honestly, I wish I could have spent more time just sitting at a table and listening to Dave, Jason, J, and Pat talk about prospects, and learning by osmosis. That's probably my one real regret about the evening -- not using enough time to learn stuff from a room full of good baseball minds. I mean, I'd love the opportunity to just pick, say, Dave Cameron's brain, for baseball knowledge and camera geekery. Oh well -- hopefully there'll be another gathering during the offseason at some point. Maybe when Derek's book comes out...
It's funny, I keep thinking I spend too much time on this blog and should really stop writing it, but then events like this happen and I remember that I'm lucky to be part of a great community like this around here, and renew my time-wasting contract for another season.
It was pretty fun. I showed off some of my Japan baseball photos (printed out, I still haven't made a lot of headway in preparing a subset of 2500 pictures for online consumption), got to chat with a whole lot of cool people, and was very entertained by Dave, Derek and Jeff. I only had one slice of pizza, though, as the distribution method (of which there was none) didn't work particularly well. Fortunately, unlike some people, I wasn't there for the food. In retrospect, I was there for the Dave Cameron Comedy Hour, I think.
And yeah, I was fully decked out in Fighters gear (Ogasawara jersey, Fighters hat, little "BB Bear" mascot keychain on my sling bag), as threatened. Oddly, there were very few people wearing baseball-related clothes -- Laurie had an awesome "Doyle #32" jersey, and David J. Corcoran was wearing a Meche t-shirt, and that's about all I recall. I suppose everyone else had come over after work as well.
We all got to watch the Mets-Cardinals game on TV, including the part where So Taguchi came in for his second plate appearance of the postseason, and hit another home run, off Billy Wagner. I tried to organize a cheer of "SPEE-ZEE-OH!" at one point, and was fortunately ignored by everyone.
A whole bunch of people off my blogroll were there, including J of Mariner Minors, the inimitable Jason Churchill of Prospect Insider, and Conor Glassey with his new StopTheWave.com t-shirt. The Everett Aquasox announcer, Pat Dillon, was also there, and we had a nice chat about Japanese baseball, which was cool. And of course, frequent commenters msb, Gomez, Dylan, Mike Snow, Brian-no-relation-to-Matt Thornton, Lauren the Token Chick, and others I'm probably forgetting because it's 3am were also around.
And even though he wasn't there, PositivePaul has me started on another song parody. I've been churning it in my head since this morning, maybe I'll write it this weekend.
Honestly, I wish I could have spent more time just sitting at a table and listening to Dave, Jason, J, and Pat talk about prospects, and learning by osmosis. That's probably my one real regret about the evening -- not using enough time to learn stuff from a room full of good baseball minds. I mean, I'd love the opportunity to just pick, say, Dave Cameron's brain, for baseball knowledge and camera geekery. Oh well -- hopefully there'll be another gathering during the offseason at some point. Maybe when Derek's book comes out...
It's funny, I keep thinking I spend too much time on this blog and should really stop writing it, but then events like this happen and I remember that I'm lucky to be part of a great community like this around here, and renew my time-wasting contract for another season.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Pacific League Playoffs, Second Stage, Game Two - Shinjo-rarenai!
(This post is meant to be a more coherent, less Fighters-fangirl, more "article-style" post than the Game Two Liveblogging was.)
I have no idea whether I'm going to get busted by Yahoo for this, but I took a whole bunch of screen captures during the game yesterday. They are many and varied, some of game action, some of the post-game celebration and press conference, etc, so if you didn't get to see the game, enjoy.
Anyway, the Nippon Ham Fighters won the Pacific League Pennant last night, for real this time.
(Photo from Jiji Press via Yahoo Sports)
Fighters 1, Hawks 0 (Box Score)
For the second time within a week, we were treated to an intense playoff pitching duel. Yet again, it involved Kazumi Saitoh, and yet again, he suffered a heartbreaking 1-0 loss when his team could not score but a single run for him.
Tomoya Yagi matched him inning for inning, zero for zero, as the evening went on.
Even when teams could put runners on, they couldn't keep them there. Kensuke Tanaka singled in the first, but was erased by a double play. Nobuhiko Matsunaka singled in the second, but was also erased by a double play. Tadaatsu Nakazawa managed a single in the third inning and was bunted to second, but was then picked off the base in a beautiful play by Yagi and Tanaka. Makoto Kaneko managed a single in the Fighters' half of the third, and was left on base as Hichori Morimoto popped out.
The top of the fourth inning saw some craziness when Naoyuki Ohmura bunted in front of the plate and dashed for first. Catcher Shinya Tsuruoka fielded the ball, ducking a charging Naoto Inada, and throwing to first a split second ahead of Ohmura. The first base coach made a "safe" sign with his arms but the umpire called Ohmura out, and the game stopped for several minutes as acting manager Moriwaki came out to argue, but the umpires stuck to their call.
The top of the fifth inning saw the Hawks on the wrong side of a call yet again. After Julio Zuleta reached base on a throwing error by Naoto Inada, he somehow failed to run on a wild pitch to Jolbert Cabrera. When Cabrera struck out, suddenly Zuleta broke for second, and Tsuruoka threw him out. Kensuke Tanaka leaned down to make the tag, and Zuleta slid into the base hard, kicking Tanaka's glove and knocking the ball loose. First he was called safe, but then the umpires reconvened and reversed the call. In all honesty, if Zuleta had just run on the wild pitch, it wouldn't have been an issue.
The next few innings went by with a few scattered runners. The first walk didn't even occur until Jolbert Cabrera watched four balls go by in the top of the 8th. Hichori Morimoto managed to catch all three outs in the top of the 9th. Yagi threw an incredible 103 pitches through the 9 innings, striking out 4, giving up 3 hits.
The bottom of the 9th began with Kazumi Saitoh, already up to 111 pitches, walking Hichori Morimoto. Playing for one run at this point, Kensuke Tanaka bunted him to second base, this being only the second time in the game the Fighters had a baserunner with less than two outs. With a runner in scoring position and the game on the line, Michihiro Ogasawara is understandably intentionally walked. Fernando Seguignol strikes out, and it's down to Atsunori Inaba to do something to win the game or see it go into extra innings.
Inaba hits a grounder up the middle. Nakazawa dives for the ball and stops it, throwing to second to get the force out on Ogasawara. But Ogasawara slides into the base just ahead of the throw and is called safe. In the meantime, Hichori Morimoto has rounded third and is heading home, and by the time shortstop Munenori Kawasaki throws to the plate, Hichori slides in safe and the Fighters win the game 1-0!
(Picture from the Jiji Press. Tsuyoshi Shinjo's the guy jumping up jubilantly in the background, Hichori Morimoto is the one down on one knee with the green armbands, Naoki Matoba is the Hawks catcher and Kazumi Saitoh is the Hawks pitcher, both of whom are in a state of shock.)
Shinjo, who had been in the on-deck circle behind Inaba in the batting order, nearly explodes with joy, and soon the rest of the team comes out and there's a big pileup of a celebration. Saitoh is in such a state of shock that he has to be carried off the field by Cabrera and Zuleta, and even Matoba doesn't move for a minute or so while the Fighters are running around celebrating.
Trey Hillman, in his interview as the champion manager, keeps saying in Japanese, "Shinjirarenai". ("I can't believe it.")
The Fighters, who haven't played in a Japan Series at all since 1981 -- before many of their recent players were even born -- will play against the Central League champion Chunichi Dragons, who have been in the fray as recently as 2004, but who have not actually won a Japan Series since 1954. The Fighters haven't won since 1962, when they were still called the Toei Flyers. This should be a great series if for nothing other than the historical implications.
Kazumi Saitoh threw 127 pitches in 8.2 innings, striking out 8, walking 2 (one intentionally), and gave up 5 hits, and only that one run. You'd think that normally a performance like that would be pretty good, but when your team is somewhat devoid of people who can actually hit a baseball with a bat, you can only do so much. A frightening thing about Saitoh this season is that even in his 7 losses, counting the postseason, his ERA is a mere 2.57. The Hawks as a team had a .697 OPS, tied with Lotte, and their 82 home runs were second-lowest in the league, only to Rakuten. They mostly made it to the postseason on the strength of their pitching staff, which led the Pacific League in WHIP at 1.22 and had the second-lowest ERA at 3.13. (Stats from here.)
What really happened in the playoffs here is that the Hawks' pitching managed to neutralize the Lions' batting for the most part, and their stronger bats preyed on the Seibu non-Matsuzaka pitchers, but the Fighters were simply stronger than them in both categories. Looking at the lineups side by side, you see that the Hawks had legitimate batters in Kawasaki, Ohmura, Matsunaka, and Zuleta. But nobody else they played in these games was really reliable to do much with a bat in their hands. Inamine as DH? Nakazawa, Ide, Matoba, Yamazaki as starters? It's clear that the organization needs to get a real third baseman and someone at second base who can hit a little, even if you can't really fault them for having a black hole in the lineup for the catcher. Matoba's a good guy who handles the pitchers well and is decent defensively, so I won't fault him there. But he's no Johjima. I'd trust the Fighters bottom-of-the-lineup guys a lot more than I'd trust the Hawks guys to come through with anything (and indeed, Fighters 9-spotter Makoto Kaneko was 3-for-7 with an RBI in this series).
Or, you could say that what really happened is that the playoff rules changed to give the 1st place team a one-game advantage in Second Stage, a change brought about partially because the Hawks had two consecutive first-place finishes without making it to the Japan Series. It really came back to bite them in this case, because without that change, they'd still have a chance now.
Or, you could be like Gary and suggest that Trey Hillman just out-managed everyone, which is also definitely possible. Having manager Sadaharu Oh go into the hospital with stomach cancer couldn't have been easy on the Hawks this year.
Anyway, it's on to the Fighters-Dragons Japan Series next, where half of the country will be scratching their head and going "Who are these guys?" The schedule is up here, and the first game will be Saturday the 21st, at the Nagoya Dome at 6pm Japan time, or 2am Seattle time. ドラゴンズよ、かかってこい!
I have no idea whether I'm going to get busted by Yahoo for this, but I took a whole bunch of screen captures during the game yesterday. They are many and varied, some of game action, some of the post-game celebration and press conference, etc, so if you didn't get to see the game, enjoy.
Anyway, the Nippon Ham Fighters won the Pacific League Pennant last night, for real this time.
(Photo from Jiji Press via Yahoo Sports)
Fighters 1, Hawks 0 (Box Score)
For the second time within a week, we were treated to an intense playoff pitching duel. Yet again, it involved Kazumi Saitoh, and yet again, he suffered a heartbreaking 1-0 loss when his team could not score but a single run for him.
Tomoya Yagi matched him inning for inning, zero for zero, as the evening went on.
Even when teams could put runners on, they couldn't keep them there. Kensuke Tanaka singled in the first, but was erased by a double play. Nobuhiko Matsunaka singled in the second, but was also erased by a double play. Tadaatsu Nakazawa managed a single in the third inning and was bunted to second, but was then picked off the base in a beautiful play by Yagi and Tanaka. Makoto Kaneko managed a single in the Fighters' half of the third, and was left on base as Hichori Morimoto popped out.
The top of the fourth inning saw some craziness when Naoyuki Ohmura bunted in front of the plate and dashed for first. Catcher Shinya Tsuruoka fielded the ball, ducking a charging Naoto Inada, and throwing to first a split second ahead of Ohmura. The first base coach made a "safe" sign with his arms but the umpire called Ohmura out, and the game stopped for several minutes as acting manager Moriwaki came out to argue, but the umpires stuck to their call.
The top of the fifth inning saw the Hawks on the wrong side of a call yet again. After Julio Zuleta reached base on a throwing error by Naoto Inada, he somehow failed to run on a wild pitch to Jolbert Cabrera. When Cabrera struck out, suddenly Zuleta broke for second, and Tsuruoka threw him out. Kensuke Tanaka leaned down to make the tag, and Zuleta slid into the base hard, kicking Tanaka's glove and knocking the ball loose. First he was called safe, but then the umpires reconvened and reversed the call. In all honesty, if Zuleta had just run on the wild pitch, it wouldn't have been an issue.
The next few innings went by with a few scattered runners. The first walk didn't even occur until Jolbert Cabrera watched four balls go by in the top of the 8th. Hichori Morimoto managed to catch all three outs in the top of the 9th. Yagi threw an incredible 103 pitches through the 9 innings, striking out 4, giving up 3 hits.
The bottom of the 9th began with Kazumi Saitoh, already up to 111 pitches, walking Hichori Morimoto. Playing for one run at this point, Kensuke Tanaka bunted him to second base, this being only the second time in the game the Fighters had a baserunner with less than two outs. With a runner in scoring position and the game on the line, Michihiro Ogasawara is understandably intentionally walked. Fernando Seguignol strikes out, and it's down to Atsunori Inaba to do something to win the game or see it go into extra innings.
Inaba hits a grounder up the middle. Nakazawa dives for the ball and stops it, throwing to second to get the force out on Ogasawara. But Ogasawara slides into the base just ahead of the throw and is called safe. In the meantime, Hichori Morimoto has rounded third and is heading home, and by the time shortstop Munenori Kawasaki throws to the plate, Hichori slides in safe and the Fighters win the game 1-0!
(Picture from the Jiji Press. Tsuyoshi Shinjo's the guy jumping up jubilantly in the background, Hichori Morimoto is the one down on one knee with the green armbands, Naoki Matoba is the Hawks catcher and Kazumi Saitoh is the Hawks pitcher, both of whom are in a state of shock.)
Shinjo, who had been in the on-deck circle behind Inaba in the batting order, nearly explodes with joy, and soon the rest of the team comes out and there's a big pileup of a celebration. Saitoh is in such a state of shock that he has to be carried off the field by Cabrera and Zuleta, and even Matoba doesn't move for a minute or so while the Fighters are running around celebrating.
Trey Hillman, in his interview as the champion manager, keeps saying in Japanese, "Shinjirarenai". ("I can't believe it.")
The Fighters, who haven't played in a Japan Series at all since 1981 -- before many of their recent players were even born -- will play against the Central League champion Chunichi Dragons, who have been in the fray as recently as 2004, but who have not actually won a Japan Series since 1954. The Fighters haven't won since 1962, when they were still called the Toei Flyers. This should be a great series if for nothing other than the historical implications.
Kazumi Saitoh threw 127 pitches in 8.2 innings, striking out 8, walking 2 (one intentionally), and gave up 5 hits, and only that one run. You'd think that normally a performance like that would be pretty good, but when your team is somewhat devoid of people who can actually hit a baseball with a bat, you can only do so much. A frightening thing about Saitoh this season is that even in his 7 losses, counting the postseason, his ERA is a mere 2.57. The Hawks as a team had a .697 OPS, tied with Lotte, and their 82 home runs were second-lowest in the league, only to Rakuten. They mostly made it to the postseason on the strength of their pitching staff, which led the Pacific League in WHIP at 1.22 and had the second-lowest ERA at 3.13. (Stats from here.)
What really happened in the playoffs here is that the Hawks' pitching managed to neutralize the Lions' batting for the most part, and their stronger bats preyed on the Seibu non-Matsuzaka pitchers, but the Fighters were simply stronger than them in both categories. Looking at the lineups side by side, you see that the Hawks had legitimate batters in Kawasaki, Ohmura, Matsunaka, and Zuleta. But nobody else they played in these games was really reliable to do much with a bat in their hands. Inamine as DH? Nakazawa, Ide, Matoba, Yamazaki as starters? It's clear that the organization needs to get a real third baseman and someone at second base who can hit a little, even if you can't really fault them for having a black hole in the lineup for the catcher. Matoba's a good guy who handles the pitchers well and is decent defensively, so I won't fault him there. But he's no Johjima. I'd trust the Fighters bottom-of-the-lineup guys a lot more than I'd trust the Hawks guys to come through with anything (and indeed, Fighters 9-spotter Makoto Kaneko was 3-for-7 with an RBI in this series).
Or, you could say that what really happened is that the playoff rules changed to give the 1st place team a one-game advantage in Second Stage, a change brought about partially because the Hawks had two consecutive first-place finishes without making it to the Japan Series. It really came back to bite them in this case, because without that change, they'd still have a chance now.
Or, you could be like Gary and suggest that Trey Hillman just out-managed everyone, which is also definitely possible. Having manager Sadaharu Oh go into the hospital with stomach cancer couldn't have been easy on the Hawks this year.
Anyway, it's on to the Fighters-Dragons Japan Series next, where half of the country will be scratching their head and going "Who are these guys?" The schedule is up here, and the first game will be Saturday the 21st, at the Nagoya Dome at 6pm Japan time, or 2am Seattle time. ドラゴンズよ、かかってこい!
Thursday, October 12, 2006
PL Playoff Liveblogging: Game 2!
Alright. I'm going to do this again. There's a few new things in store for today's game, though:
Yahoo video feed: Yahoo! TV Bank / Fighters
Yahoo gameday feed: Yahoo! Japan Gameday
And more importantly, there's a chance Michael Westbay will actually do a "Pro Yakyu Live!" internet radio broadcast of the game in English. I'm assuming he'll make an announcement in the News part of the forums on japanesebaseball.com when he figures it out. There will also be a chatroom there, which is probably a lot more efficient than talking in comments here.
But please do chime in with comments if you want to, of course :)
Tonight's game starts at about 2am Pacific time. Tomoya Yagi is starting for the Nippon Ham Fighters, and Kazumi Saitoh is starting for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. Yagi should be the Pacific League ROY if there's any justice in the world - the 22-year-old lefty burst onto the scene and compiled a 12-8 record with an ERA of 2.48 and 3 shutouts. Kazumi Saitoh, on the other hand, BETTER get the Sawamura award this year. He beat that annoying Lions pitcher people won't shut up about in every statistic that matters, compiling an unreal 18-5 record with a 1.75 ERA in 26 starts, striking out 205 in 201 innings, and pitching 5 shutouts.
If the Fighters win this game, they go on to the Japan Series. If the Hawks win, Game 3 will be on Saturday in Fukuoka.
I'm going to try to take a nap for about an hour and a half and should be joining the jb.com chatroom and starting my posting here a little bit before 2am again. Join in for the fun!
Lineups, LL-style (but without the cool border):
It should be noted that I list Hichori Morimoto, Kensuke Tanaka, and Naoto Inada by first name instead of last because that's the name we use in their player cheers, i.e. "kattobase Hichori!" Tanaka and Morimoto are really common last names (there are two Tanakas on the top-level team, even) and I think Inada gets it because his name is so close to Atsunori Inaba's.
Also, if you came here for my English NPB playoff coverage from elsewhere, I've been a diehard Fighters fan for the past several years, which will probably be pretty obvious once you start reading this.
DUDE! I've got 768k and it's clear tonight! Awesome!
Top of the first: Kawasaki grounds out to second. Ohmura flies out to Shinjo. Tanoue (not Shibahara!!) grounds out up the middle, where second baseman Kensuke Tanaka charges the ball up the middle and gets it to first just in time to get the out. 0-0. 7 pitches for Yagi. Nice.
Bottom of the first:
Saitoh is already in fine form, striking out Hichori Morimoto on a 145km/h fastball down the middle. Ugh, this is going to be a difficult game to watch. Fortunately, Kensuke Tanaka seems affected by my singing his cheer song again and he singles to left, the ball falling in right in front of Matsunaka. Ogasawara lines the ball to first, where Julio Zuleta gets it on the bag and fires it to second and also catches Tanaka sliding in. Double play. Yow, that was really a pretty nice snag and throw. Still 0-0.
Top of the second: Matsunaka fouls off about ninety pitches before hitting the ball against the back wall in right field (fortunately only for a single). Zuleta grounds to third, where Naoto Inada snags it, fires to Tanaka at second, who fires to Ogasawara at first, 5-4-3 double play! Wooo! former Mariner Jolbert Cabrera comes out and blows a gigantic bubble of gum... then he just literally watches the first ball go by on the outside corner. Heh. He too grounds to third for an easy play by Inada. Whee. Well, that was 19 pitches this inning for Yagi, but the score is still 0-0.
Bottom of the second: Seguignol pulls an Inaba by fouling the ball way out to the stands, then ends up grounding to second, where Nakazawa charges in and underhand tosses the ball to Zuleta at first. Inaba grounds out, Kawasaki coming in towards second and throwing him out by a few feet at first. Shinjo's up, and Saitoh throws him a whole bunch of loopy low breaking stuff and eventually he swings at enough of them to strike out. Still 0-0. 22 pitches for Saitoh so far.
Top of the third: Ok, this is a little weird. Tadaatsu Nakazawa is at bat for the Hawks, and on the TV they show his name as 仲澤 but on the Yahoo lineups they show him as 仲沢. Oh well, either way, he singles up the middle. Shotarou Ide bunts him to second (looked like a 5-4 play on it). AND OOOOOH look at that one -- Yagi throws to Tanaka and PICKS OFF NAKAZAWA AT SECOND. Shinjo gets a huge grin on his face and cheers for them from the outfield, too :) Oh man, that was awesome, so then Naoki Matoba hits a long fly ball to left field and Hichori Morimoto catches up with it just short of the wall, gets the ball, hits the wall, and then falls into a somersault. Hichori definitely strikes me as the Eric Byrnes type (I mean that in a good way, of course). Yagi is up to 36 pitches. Still 0-0.
Bottom of the third: Naoto Inada grounds out to short. (man, Saitoh can really paint the corners.) Tsuruoka watches a few balls go by, then swings a few times, fouls one off, and... pops out to short. still, a 7-pitch at-bat is pretty good. Kaneko makes a silly swing or two but then hits it hard towards left, past a diving Kawasaki, for a two-out single! unfortunately Hichori pops out to second, ending the inning. Still 0-0, and Saitoh is up to 41 pitches.
Top of the fourth: Oh man, Kawasaki just watched a slider go by for a called third strike on the outside low corner. And then Ohmura bunted -- fielded 2-3, and was called out at first, but it was CLOSE. Ohmura does not look happy with the call, and here comes Moriwaki to argue it. On the replays I actually can't tell, it's VERY close, the first-base coach made a "safe" sign but it does look like he was out by a split second. Tsuruoka even had to duck Inada to actually field the ball. After a really long discussion Moriwaki gives up. Ohmura slams his hat on the ground. The entire time, Shinjo has been striking poses in the outfield and grinning at the fans. I am NOT kidding. Times like this when I really do love Shinjo for being a total idiot :) Tanoue then grounds out to third, another clean play by Naoto Inada. 43 pitches for Yagi through the fourth. Still 0-0. Still 2 hits by both Fighters and Hawks. This could take forever. Also, I HATE the arrangement of the Fighters song they're playing this inning.
Bottom of the fourth: Kensuke Tanaka grounds out to second. Ogasawara digs in and sends the ball out to center but Ohmura catches it at the warning track. Seguignol strikes out on a 150km/h pitch (I was sort of wondering when Saitoh was going to get back to his normal habits... I mean, his uniform says "K. Saitoh" for a reason). 51 pitches for Saitoh through four innings. Still 0-0.
Top of the fifth: Westbay informs us that we're apparently missing out on Shinjo underwear commercials by watching the net broadcast instead of on TV, heh. Matsunaka pops foul behind the plate and Shinya Tsuruoka runs back and slides in to make the catch!!!!! That was awesome! Unfortunately right after that, Zuleta grounds to third -- Naoto grabs it and sort of has to take a funny hop to throw it to first, and the ball takes a bounce and Ogasawara doesn't cleanly grab onto it, so it's either an E5 or an E3 as Zuleta's safe at the base. With Cabrera batting, Yagi shakes off the sign about ninety times (he looks like the little dudes in Pawapuro) and then ends up throwing a wild pitch and for some reason, Zuleta doesn't run???? Oh, and Tomoya Satozaki is commenting on the game! That's so COOL! oh man. okay, so Cabrera strikes out and THEN Zuleta runs to steal second, knocking over Kensuke Tanaka in the process and knocking the ball out of his glove. That is NOT cool. Hmm... they ended up calling him out for it! Oh, wow, on replays you can tell he not only slid into Tanaka but he kicked his glove and the ball. He's pissed off, but.. DUMBASS, YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST RUN TO SECOND ON THE WILD PITCH, YOU KNOW? Well, if the reruling stands, that's 0-0 through 5 and 56 pitches for Yagi.
(btw, later, we check and 三失 shows for the error, so they charged it to Inada)
Bottom of the fifth: Inaba fouls off a whole bunch, then grounds out to first, Julio Zuleta making the play at the bag himself. Shinjo sort of half-checks a swing on a way outside pitch... nah, on replays, he really swung, and strikes out. Inada singles up the middle, over a jumping Kawasaki! Tsuruoka joins the "if we foul off a ton of pitches Saitoh will get tired" theme of the inning, but after about 7 pitches strikes out swinging. Still 0-0 and 79 pitches for Saitoh through five innings. Hmm, apparently doing YMCA in the fifth inning break IS still happening, I'm not sure I caught it yesterday.
Top of the sixth: Nakazawa takes the first pitch he sees and hits a clean single to left field, grounding past Kaneko. Of course Ide immediately squares away to bunt... and succeeds, Yagi fielding the bunt, Nakazawa going to second. Westbay informs us that we are really delayed, but won't tell us what happened next (my reaction was: "don't tell me, Matoba hits a 2-run homer, and then aliens land from Mars, and I don't mean Hichori."). Ha, Matoba strikes out. Tsuruoka's been making funny motions to the infielders to get ready for a pickoff at second, too (but never does anything more than faking a motion to throw there). And... Kawasaki strikes out swinging too! Wow! Still 0-0, still nobody reaching third, and 68 pitches for Yagi through 6. Westbay notes that Nakazawa was the Hawks' first stranded runner and that the Fighters still haven't even gotten a runner to second.
Bottom of the sixth: Makoto Kaneko hits a flyball to right field, easily caught. Hichori Morimoto goes down on three straight strikes (jesus, he's not even following the ball, I swear he's Beltreing it, just guessing and swinging). And... and I sing along to Kensuke Tanaka's cheer song and he singles yet again. I sense a pattern here. Oh, um, I haven't been watching this screen suddenly. Ogasawara, sadly, struck out to end the inning. Bleh. 92 pitches for Saitoh, 7 strikeouts.
Top of the seventh: Ohmura pops out to short, easy catch for Kaneko. Tanoue flies out to center and Shinjo barely has to move to make the catch. Matsunaka grounds out to short. Short inning, too. 80 pitches for Yagi through 7. Daaaaaamn.
Bottom of the seventh: Seguignol pops up foul towards third, and Matoba and Cabrera both run for it, Cabrera making the catch right in front of all the camera-wielding press box folks. Inaba sends the ball far into left field, Matsunaka making the catch. Shinjo lines out to third, another quick inning, but we're up to 103 pitches for Saitoh through 7.
I've been sparse in my details this last inning because I've been trying to figure out where the hell Oppama is. Don't ask. Also, nothing really interesting has happened. When Shinjo lined out, for some reason he started grinning like a madman. What a weirdo.
Top of the eighth: Wow. Zuleta grounded out to third, as Inada dove to his left to get the ball, stopped it but didn't quite get it, but then rescued it bare-handed and made the throw to first quickly and cleanly. That was beautiful. Cabrera... walks... on four straight balls. The first walk of the contest, even. Nakazawa flies out to right, Inaba threatening to throw out Cabrera (if he was actually capable of tagging up to get to second, heh). WOW! Ide hits a grounder up towards short, and Kaneko runs a few steps and dives for it and makes the stop and throws to Tanaka at second in time to nab Cabrera. That was BEAUTIFUL! Have I mentioned today yet that I love Makoto Kaneko? :) 96 pitches for Yagi through 8. I think I love him too.
Bottom of the eighth: While I was typing the last sentence there, Inada flew out to center, oops. Tsuruoka grounds out to third. This is the problem, we keep getting two quick outs... hard to do anything with anyone on base after that. Kaneko pops out to center after taking a really silly swing at a slider (right after we were talking about his glove being so much better than his bat) and that's another quick inning. 111 pitches for Saitoh through eight. Still 0-0.
Top of the ninth: Matoba hits a long fly to left and Hichori Morimoto gets it on the run. And OH GOD THE PEOPLE ARE DOING THE WAVE WTF. Conor would be very disappointed to see that, I'm sure. In the meantime, Kawasaki pops out foul to left field and Hichori catches it just short of the stands wall/fence. And then Ohmura also flies out to left! Wow! That's three catches in a row for Hichori :) 103 pitches through 9 for Yagi. That is AWESOME. Still 0-0. Westbay's pointed out that if this game ties the Fighters clinch due to their one-game advantage. That's really really weird.
Bottom of the ninth: The crowd is going WILD, and Saitoh is still out there. Yakiniku E-RI-KA! A 5-minute walk from Nippori... and a 90-foot walk for Hichori, as Saitoh throws four straight balls. 115 pitches for Saitoh. Kensuke squares away to bunt and it's successful, Hichori going to second, Nakazawa covering first on the 2-4 play as Zuleta fell over or something. Mound conference... Ogasawara's up with a runer in scoring position... oh. Yeah, that's a good idea, intentionally walking Ogasawara :) Here comes Seguignol... oh wow. strikeout! Damn. Wow. runners on first and second, two outs, Inaba at bat... otherwise heading into extra innings if he can't do anything here, and Saitoh at 125 pitches.
SORRY I DIDN'T UPDATE WE WON ONE SECOND HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!
I'm going to crib from Westbay in the chat. I saw the play but am just sort of overwhelmed right now.
So Inaba hits a grounder up the middle, which Nakazawa dives for, and he throws it to second, but Ogasawara slides into the base safely JUST in time... in the meantime, Hichori rounds third and heads for home while the Hawks are futzing with the ball at second, and scores, and THE FIGHTERS WIN THE GAME 1-0!!!!
Kazumi Saitoh had to be carried off the field by Zuleta and Cabrera. My heart breaks to see him like that. I'm serious. That's two 1-0 losses in the playoffs, and I know he considers the entire fate of the club to be on his head. I hope he's okay, I really, really do. He's the only Hawks pitcher I would not have wanted to see saddled with this loss.
Anyway, after that they go nuts with celebrating and jumping and crying and a whole buncha doages, from the manager, to a coach, and to YUKIO TANAKA, who's been on this cursed team since 1986 and didn't get into the playoff games but who cares, he's going to the Japan Series.
Hillman's interviewed as the championship manager. He did the first couple of questions answering in Japanese... they asked what he was thinking and all he could say was, "信じられない." ("I can't believe it.") When asked to give a message to the fans he said, "北海道のみんなさんは世界の一番です！！" ("Everyone in Hokkaido is the best in the world!!!")
Talks in English about how they built the team, how great everyone is, how he's happy for everyone as baseball fans but even moreso if they're Fighters fans. At the end he tells the stadium, "let's say it together... 1-2-3 信じられない!"
HOLY CRAP
The wackiest part is that the game was over in 3 hours and neither team went to their bullpen at all -- and the Fighters didn't go to the bullpen at all for the entire SERIES. Yagi and Darvish both went complete games. Think about that... won by a 22-year-old and a 20-year-old, neither of whom were alive when the Fighters played in the 1981 Japan Series.
They gave the PL pennant flag to Ogasawara to hold, and the regular season #1 flag to Kaneko to hold, and the TV coverage continued online for about an hour and a half after the game ended. The fans didn't seem to want to leave the stadium, and I don't blame them. People threw flowers to Shinjo and waved and screamed and cried to the players, doing banzais and more cheer songs. Eventually they showed the team filtering into the press room, and they had Hillman speak for a while and then various players like Kaneko, Shinjo, Ogasawara, Hichori, etc. Hichori was wearing goggles and had painted a nosebleed on his face or something. The entire team was wearing white "Fighters 2006 Pacific League CHAMPIONS" t-shirts, and boy, do I want one of THOSE!
Blogger died on me at 5:40am so I didn't really get to finish this entry. I've got some screenshots of the game, and tomorrow's entry here will most likely be a more coherent summary with some screenshots linked. When I get a chance, maybe this weekend, I'd like to put together a set of English info pages on the Fighters.
Yahoo video feed: Yahoo! TV Bank / Fighters
Yahoo gameday feed: Yahoo! Japan Gameday
And more importantly, there's a chance Michael Westbay will actually do a "Pro Yakyu Live!" internet radio broadcast of the game in English. I'm assuming he'll make an announcement in the News part of the forums on japanesebaseball.com when he figures it out. There will also be a chatroom there, which is probably a lot more efficient than talking in comments here.
But please do chime in with comments if you want to, of course :)
Tonight's game starts at about 2am Pacific time. Tomoya Yagi is starting for the Nippon Ham Fighters, and Kazumi Saitoh is starting for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. Yagi should be the Pacific League ROY if there's any justice in the world - the 22-year-old lefty burst onto the scene and compiled a 12-8 record with an ERA of 2.48 and 3 shutouts. Kazumi Saitoh, on the other hand, BETTER get the Sawamura award this year. He beat that annoying Lions pitcher people won't shut up about in every statistic that matters, compiling an unreal 18-5 record with a 1.75 ERA in 26 starts, striking out 205 in 201 innings, and pitching 5 shutouts.
If the Fighters win this game, they go on to the Japan Series. If the Hawks win, Game 3 will be on Saturday in Fukuoka.
I'm going to try to take a nap for about an hour and a half and should be joining the jb.com chatroom and starting my posting here a little bit before 2am again. Join in for the fun!
Lineups, LL-style (but without the cool border):
Kawsasaki SS Hichori LF
Ohmura CF Kensuke 2B
Tanoue DH Ogasawara 1B
Matsunaka LF Seguignol DH
Zuleta 1B Inaba RF
Cabrera 3B SHINJO CF
Nakazawa 2B Naoto 3B
Ide RF Tsuruoka C
Matoba C Kaneko! SS
---------- ----------
Saitoh (18-5, 1.75) Yagi (12-8, 2.48)
It should be noted that I list Hichori Morimoto, Kensuke Tanaka, and Naoto Inada by first name instead of last because that's the name we use in their player cheers, i.e. "kattobase Hichori!" Tanaka and Morimoto are really common last names (there are two Tanakas on the top-level team, even) and I think Inada gets it because his name is so close to Atsunori Inaba's.
Also, if you came here for my English NPB playoff coverage from elsewhere, I've been a diehard Fighters fan for the past several years, which will probably be pretty obvious once you start reading this.
DUDE! I've got 768k and it's clear tonight! Awesome!
Top of the first: Kawasaki grounds out to second. Ohmura flies out to Shinjo. Tanoue (not Shibahara!!) grounds out up the middle, where second baseman Kensuke Tanaka charges the ball up the middle and gets it to first just in time to get the out. 0-0. 7 pitches for Yagi. Nice.
Bottom of the first:
Saitoh is already in fine form, striking out Hichori Morimoto on a 145km/h fastball down the middle. Ugh, this is going to be a difficult game to watch. Fortunately, Kensuke Tanaka seems affected by my singing his cheer song again and he singles to left, the ball falling in right in front of Matsunaka. Ogasawara lines the ball to first, where Julio Zuleta gets it on the bag and fires it to second and also catches Tanaka sliding in. Double play. Yow, that was really a pretty nice snag and throw. Still 0-0.
Top of the second: Matsunaka fouls off about ninety pitches before hitting the ball against the back wall in right field (fortunately only for a single). Zuleta grounds to third, where Naoto Inada snags it, fires to Tanaka at second, who fires to Ogasawara at first, 5-4-3 double play! Wooo! former Mariner Jolbert Cabrera comes out and blows a gigantic bubble of gum... then he just literally watches the first ball go by on the outside corner. Heh. He too grounds to third for an easy play by Inada. Whee. Well, that was 19 pitches this inning for Yagi, but the score is still 0-0.
Bottom of the second: Seguignol pulls an Inaba by fouling the ball way out to the stands, then ends up grounding to second, where Nakazawa charges in and underhand tosses the ball to Zuleta at first. Inaba grounds out, Kawasaki coming in towards second and throwing him out by a few feet at first. Shinjo's up, and Saitoh throws him a whole bunch of loopy low breaking stuff and eventually he swings at enough of them to strike out. Still 0-0. 22 pitches for Saitoh so far.
Top of the third: Ok, this is a little weird. Tadaatsu Nakazawa is at bat for the Hawks, and on the TV they show his name as 仲澤 but on the Yahoo lineups they show him as 仲沢. Oh well, either way, he singles up the middle. Shotarou Ide bunts him to second (looked like a 5-4 play on it). AND OOOOOH look at that one -- Yagi throws to Tanaka and PICKS OFF NAKAZAWA AT SECOND. Shinjo gets a huge grin on his face and cheers for them from the outfield, too :) Oh man, that was awesome, so then Naoki Matoba hits a long fly ball to left field and Hichori Morimoto catches up with it just short of the wall, gets the ball, hits the wall, and then falls into a somersault. Hichori definitely strikes me as the Eric Byrnes type (I mean that in a good way, of course). Yagi is up to 36 pitches. Still 0-0.
Bottom of the third: Naoto Inada grounds out to short. (man, Saitoh can really paint the corners.) Tsuruoka watches a few balls go by, then swings a few times, fouls one off, and... pops out to short. still, a 7-pitch at-bat is pretty good. Kaneko makes a silly swing or two but then hits it hard towards left, past a diving Kawasaki, for a two-out single! unfortunately Hichori pops out to second, ending the inning. Still 0-0, and Saitoh is up to 41 pitches.
Top of the fourth: Oh man, Kawasaki just watched a slider go by for a called third strike on the outside low corner. And then Ohmura bunted -- fielded 2-3, and was called out at first, but it was CLOSE. Ohmura does not look happy with the call, and here comes Moriwaki to argue it. On the replays I actually can't tell, it's VERY close, the first-base coach made a "safe" sign but it does look like he was out by a split second. Tsuruoka even had to duck Inada to actually field the ball. After a really long discussion Moriwaki gives up. Ohmura slams his hat on the ground. The entire time, Shinjo has been striking poses in the outfield and grinning at the fans. I am NOT kidding. Times like this when I really do love Shinjo for being a total idiot :) Tanoue then grounds out to third, another clean play by Naoto Inada. 43 pitches for Yagi through the fourth. Still 0-0. Still 2 hits by both Fighters and Hawks. This could take forever. Also, I HATE the arrangement of the Fighters song they're playing this inning.
Bottom of the fourth: Kensuke Tanaka grounds out to second. Ogasawara digs in and sends the ball out to center but Ohmura catches it at the warning track. Seguignol strikes out on a 150km/h pitch (I was sort of wondering when Saitoh was going to get back to his normal habits... I mean, his uniform says "K. Saitoh" for a reason). 51 pitches for Saitoh through four innings. Still 0-0.
Top of the fifth: Westbay informs us that we're apparently missing out on Shinjo underwear commercials by watching the net broadcast instead of on TV, heh. Matsunaka pops foul behind the plate and Shinya Tsuruoka runs back and slides in to make the catch!!!!! That was awesome! Unfortunately right after that, Zuleta grounds to third -- Naoto grabs it and sort of has to take a funny hop to throw it to first, and the ball takes a bounce and Ogasawara doesn't cleanly grab onto it, so it's either an E5 or an E3 as Zuleta's safe at the base. With Cabrera batting, Yagi shakes off the sign about ninety times (he looks like the little dudes in Pawapuro) and then ends up throwing a wild pitch and for some reason, Zuleta doesn't run???? Oh, and Tomoya Satozaki is commenting on the game! That's so COOL! oh man. okay, so Cabrera strikes out and THEN Zuleta runs to steal second, knocking over Kensuke Tanaka in the process and knocking the ball out of his glove. That is NOT cool. Hmm... they ended up calling him out for it! Oh, wow, on replays you can tell he not only slid into Tanaka but he kicked his glove and the ball. He's pissed off, but.. DUMBASS, YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST RUN TO SECOND ON THE WILD PITCH, YOU KNOW? Well, if the reruling stands, that's 0-0 through 5 and 56 pitches for Yagi.
(btw, later, we check and 三失 shows for the error, so they charged it to Inada)
Bottom of the fifth: Inaba fouls off a whole bunch, then grounds out to first, Julio Zuleta making the play at the bag himself. Shinjo sort of half-checks a swing on a way outside pitch... nah, on replays, he really swung, and strikes out. Inada singles up the middle, over a jumping Kawasaki! Tsuruoka joins the "if we foul off a ton of pitches Saitoh will get tired" theme of the inning, but after about 7 pitches strikes out swinging. Still 0-0 and 79 pitches for Saitoh through five innings. Hmm, apparently doing YMCA in the fifth inning break IS still happening, I'm not sure I caught it yesterday.
Top of the sixth: Nakazawa takes the first pitch he sees and hits a clean single to left field, grounding past Kaneko. Of course Ide immediately squares away to bunt... and succeeds, Yagi fielding the bunt, Nakazawa going to second. Westbay informs us that we are really delayed, but won't tell us what happened next (my reaction was: "don't tell me, Matoba hits a 2-run homer, and then aliens land from Mars, and I don't mean Hichori."). Ha, Matoba strikes out. Tsuruoka's been making funny motions to the infielders to get ready for a pickoff at second, too (but never does anything more than faking a motion to throw there). And... Kawasaki strikes out swinging too! Wow! Still 0-0, still nobody reaching third, and 68 pitches for Yagi through 6. Westbay notes that Nakazawa was the Hawks' first stranded runner and that the Fighters still haven't even gotten a runner to second.
Bottom of the sixth: Makoto Kaneko hits a flyball to right field, easily caught. Hichori Morimoto goes down on three straight strikes (jesus, he's not even following the ball, I swear he's Beltreing it, just guessing and swinging). And... and I sing along to Kensuke Tanaka's cheer song and he singles yet again. I sense a pattern here. Oh, um, I haven't been watching this screen suddenly. Ogasawara, sadly, struck out to end the inning. Bleh. 92 pitches for Saitoh, 7 strikeouts.
Top of the seventh: Ohmura pops out to short, easy catch for Kaneko. Tanoue flies out to center and Shinjo barely has to move to make the catch. Matsunaka grounds out to short. Short inning, too. 80 pitches for Yagi through 7. Daaaaaamn.
Bottom of the seventh: Seguignol pops up foul towards third, and Matoba and Cabrera both run for it, Cabrera making the catch right in front of all the camera-wielding press box folks. Inaba sends the ball far into left field, Matsunaka making the catch. Shinjo lines out to third, another quick inning, but we're up to 103 pitches for Saitoh through 7.
I've been sparse in my details this last inning because I've been trying to figure out where the hell Oppama is. Don't ask. Also, nothing really interesting has happened. When Shinjo lined out, for some reason he started grinning like a madman. What a weirdo.
Top of the eighth: Wow. Zuleta grounded out to third, as Inada dove to his left to get the ball, stopped it but didn't quite get it, but then rescued it bare-handed and made the throw to first quickly and cleanly. That was beautiful. Cabrera... walks... on four straight balls. The first walk of the contest, even. Nakazawa flies out to right, Inaba threatening to throw out Cabrera (if he was actually capable of tagging up to get to second, heh). WOW! Ide hits a grounder up towards short, and Kaneko runs a few steps and dives for it and makes the stop and throws to Tanaka at second in time to nab Cabrera. That was BEAUTIFUL! Have I mentioned today yet that I love Makoto Kaneko? :) 96 pitches for Yagi through 8. I think I love him too.
Bottom of the eighth: While I was typing the last sentence there, Inada flew out to center, oops. Tsuruoka grounds out to third. This is the problem, we keep getting two quick outs... hard to do anything with anyone on base after that. Kaneko pops out to center after taking a really silly swing at a slider (right after we were talking about his glove being so much better than his bat) and that's another quick inning. 111 pitches for Saitoh through eight. Still 0-0.
Top of the ninth: Matoba hits a long fly to left and Hichori Morimoto gets it on the run. And OH GOD THE PEOPLE ARE DOING THE WAVE WTF. Conor would be very disappointed to see that, I'm sure. In the meantime, Kawasaki pops out foul to left field and Hichori catches it just short of the stands wall/fence. And then Ohmura also flies out to left! Wow! That's three catches in a row for Hichori :) 103 pitches through 9 for Yagi. That is AWESOME. Still 0-0. Westbay's pointed out that if this game ties the Fighters clinch due to their one-game advantage. That's really really weird.
Bottom of the ninth: The crowd is going WILD, and Saitoh is still out there. Yakiniku E-RI-KA! A 5-minute walk from Nippori... and a 90-foot walk for Hichori, as Saitoh throws four straight balls. 115 pitches for Saitoh. Kensuke squares away to bunt and it's successful, Hichori going to second, Nakazawa covering first on the 2-4 play as Zuleta fell over or something. Mound conference... Ogasawara's up with a runer in scoring position... oh. Yeah, that's a good idea, intentionally walking Ogasawara :) Here comes Seguignol... oh wow. strikeout! Damn. Wow. runners on first and second, two outs, Inaba at bat... otherwise heading into extra innings if he can't do anything here, and Saitoh at 125 pitches.
SORRY I DIDN'T UPDATE WE WON ONE SECOND HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!
I'm going to crib from Westbay in the chat. I saw the play but am just sort of overwhelmed right now.
So Inaba hits a grounder up the middle, which Nakazawa dives for, and he throws it to second, but Ogasawara slides into the base safely JUST in time... in the meantime, Hichori rounds third and heads for home while the Hawks are futzing with the ball at second, and scores, and THE FIGHTERS WIN THE GAME 1-0!!!!
Kazumi Saitoh had to be carried off the field by Zuleta and Cabrera. My heart breaks to see him like that. I'm serious. That's two 1-0 losses in the playoffs, and I know he considers the entire fate of the club to be on his head. I hope he's okay, I really, really do. He's the only Hawks pitcher I would not have wanted to see saddled with this loss.
Anyway, after that they go nuts with celebrating and jumping and crying and a whole buncha doages, from the manager, to a coach, and to YUKIO TANAKA, who's been on this cursed team since 1986 and didn't get into the playoff games but who cares, he's going to the Japan Series.
Hillman's interviewed as the championship manager. He did the first couple of questions answering in Japanese... they asked what he was thinking and all he could say was, "信じられない." ("I can't believe it.") When asked to give a message to the fans he said, "北海道のみんなさんは世界の一番です！！" ("Everyone in Hokkaido is the best in the world!!!")
Talks in English about how they built the team, how great everyone is, how he's happy for everyone as baseball fans but even moreso if they're Fighters fans. At the end he tells the stadium, "let's say it together... 1-2-3 信じられない!"
HOLY CRAP
The wackiest part is that the game was over in 3 hours and neither team went to their bullpen at all -- and the Fighters didn't go to the bullpen at all for the entire SERIES. Yagi and Darvish both went complete games. Think about that... won by a 22-year-old and a 20-year-old, neither of whom were alive when the Fighters played in the 1981 Japan Series.
They gave the PL pennant flag to Ogasawara to hold, and the regular season #1 flag to Kaneko to hold, and the TV coverage continued online for about an hour and a half after the game ended. The fans didn't seem to want to leave the stadium, and I don't blame them. People threw flowers to Shinjo and waved and screamed and cried to the players, doing banzais and more cheer songs. Eventually they showed the team filtering into the press room, and they had Hillman speak for a while and then various players like Kaneko, Shinjo, Ogasawara, Hichori, etc. Hichori was wearing goggles and had painted a nosebleed on his face or something. The entire team was wearing white "Fighters 2006 Pacific League CHAMPIONS" t-shirts, and boy, do I want one of THOSE!
Blogger died on me at 5:40am so I didn't really get to finish this entry. I've got some screenshots of the game, and tomorrow's entry here will most likely be a more coherent summary with some screenshots linked. When I get a chance, maybe this weekend, I'd like to put together a set of English info pages on the Fighters.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Cory Lidle, 1972-2006
If you saw the news blip that a small plane crashed into an apartment building in NYC today, you might have found that vaguely disturbing.
If you found out that Cory Lidle was the pilot and is now dead, you're probably even MORE disturbed by it.
I don't really know what to say. I know I joked that I disowned him and Bobby Abreu when they were traded to the Yankees, but I always liked him when he pitched for the Phillies, and thought he was pretty dependable if nothing else.
For lack of words, I'm going to leave you with my favorite Cory Lidle memory. Last year at Christmas time, mlb.com did their Holiday Interviews Around The Majors, which was mostly dorky, but I did a blog entry on it and ranked Lidle's to be the second funniest. Infact, any time I see tamales on a menu it actually reminds me of Lidle. No joke.
Lidle enjoys Christmas in California
At the time, that interview completely cracked me up. Now, thinking how his wife and son are on a flight to LA and are going to land and find out about this, I almost want to cry.
If you found out that Cory Lidle was the pilot and is now dead, you're probably even MORE disturbed by it.
I don't really know what to say. I know I joked that I disowned him and Bobby Abreu when they were traded to the Yankees, but I always liked him when he pitched for the Phillies, and thought he was pretty dependable if nothing else.
For lack of words, I'm going to leave you with my favorite Cory Lidle memory. Last year at Christmas time, mlb.com did their Holiday Interviews Around The Majors, which was mostly dorky, but I did a blog entry on it and ranked Lidle's to be the second funniest. Infact, any time I see tamales on a menu it actually reminds me of Lidle. No joke.
Lidle enjoys Christmas in California
At the time, that interview completely cracked me up. Now, thinking how his wife and son are on a flight to LA and are going to land and find out about this, I almost want to cry.
Pacific League Playoffs, Second Stage, Game One -- Darvish YOU!
Fighters 3, Hawks 1 (Box Score)
It's really hard to remember that Yu Darvish turned 20 barely two months ago.
Tonight he went the distance, throwing a 138-pitch complete game win against the Hawks, giving up one run, striking out 11.
He did have a shaky start, and the Hawks put a run on the board in the first inning when Munenori Kawasaki and Naoyuki Ohmura led off the game by singling, Hiroshi Shibahara bunted them ahead, and Nobuhiko Matsunaka hit a sac fly to left that scored Kawasaki.
But that was the only run they'd score in the evening, as Darvish handled them pretty well along the rest of the way. Only one Hawks batter got to third base for the rest of the evening, and that was only because Homare Inamine beat out the throw at first on what should have been a double play in the sixth.
The Fighters put their runs ahead in the bottom of the third inning. Hichori Morimoto singled, and was bunted over by Kensuke Tanaka. Michihiro Ogasawara walked (which was a theme for the evening, he was walked three times, once intentionally), and Fernando Seguignol hit a single to left, scoring Hichori. (You should have seen the look on Seguignol's face, he was ecstatic.) Atsunori Inaba popped out to short right field, and then Shinjo singled to right, scoring Ogasawara, and Shinjo looked even goofier and happier. Jose Macias flew out after that, too, but it was 2-1 Fighters. Toshiya Sugiuchi, the Hawks starter, only lasted those three innings, and the bullpen took over after that.
It'd stay at 2-1 until the bottom of the eighth. Akihiro Yanase, the rookie who pitched pretty well against the Lions the other day, wasn't pitching so well here. He walked Yuuji Iiyama, and then Shinya Tsuruoka ripped one into the right field corner for a single, moving Iiyama to third. Yoshiaki Fujioka took over on the mound, but allowed a single to Makoto Kaneko, who hit a low blooper into shallow center, scoring Iiyama.
Ryuuma Kidokoro got a single off of Darvish in the top of the 9th, but that was all the Hawks would manage, as he struck out Ohmura to end the game for his 11th strikeout of the evening.
Fighters manager Trey Hillman's taken some criticism for leaving his starters in too long recently, hence the current situation with Satoru Kanemura being off the roster for the playoffs, but leaving Darvish in for today's game worked. There's a good chance he'll want his bullpen fresh for tomorrow's matchup of Kazumi Saitoh vs. Tomoya Yagi, as well.
The crowd was a sellout crowd and red/white Fighters logo placards were given out to fans at the gate at the Sapporo dome. In addition to those, several homemade signs could be spotted, cheering for individual players, or one that said "Let's go to Nagoya!", a reference to the Chunichi Dragons clinching the Central League pennant. The blue inflatable dolphins were out in force for Ogasawara as well.
Bob Timmerman is in Japan for the playoff series and writing about it on his blog. His Game 1 account, with a few photos, can be found here.
My late-night semi-coherent game-updating babblings from liveblogging last night's game are still up as well.
It's really hard to remember that Yu Darvish turned 20 barely two months ago.
Tonight he went the distance, throwing a 138-pitch complete game win against the Hawks, giving up one run, striking out 11.
He did have a shaky start, and the Hawks put a run on the board in the first inning when Munenori Kawasaki and Naoyuki Ohmura led off the game by singling, Hiroshi Shibahara bunted them ahead, and Nobuhiko Matsunaka hit a sac fly to left that scored Kawasaki.
But that was the only run they'd score in the evening, as Darvish handled them pretty well along the rest of the way. Only one Hawks batter got to third base for the rest of the evening, and that was only because Homare Inamine beat out the throw at first on what should have been a double play in the sixth.
The Fighters put their runs ahead in the bottom of the third inning. Hichori Morimoto singled, and was bunted over by Kensuke Tanaka. Michihiro Ogasawara walked (which was a theme for the evening, he was walked three times, once intentionally), and Fernando Seguignol hit a single to left, scoring Hichori. (You should have seen the look on Seguignol's face, he was ecstatic.) Atsunori Inaba popped out to short right field, and then Shinjo singled to right, scoring Ogasawara, and Shinjo looked even goofier and happier. Jose Macias flew out after that, too, but it was 2-1 Fighters. Toshiya Sugiuchi, the Hawks starter, only lasted those three innings, and the bullpen took over after that.
It'd stay at 2-1 until the bottom of the eighth. Akihiro Yanase, the rookie who pitched pretty well against the Lions the other day, wasn't pitching so well here. He walked Yuuji Iiyama, and then Shinya Tsuruoka ripped one into the right field corner for a single, moving Iiyama to third. Yoshiaki Fujioka took over on the mound, but allowed a single to Makoto Kaneko, who hit a low blooper into shallow center, scoring Iiyama.
Ryuuma Kidokoro got a single off of Darvish in the top of the 9th, but that was all the Hawks would manage, as he struck out Ohmura to end the game for his 11th strikeout of the evening.
Fighters manager Trey Hillman's taken some criticism for leaving his starters in too long recently, hence the current situation with Satoru Kanemura being off the roster for the playoffs, but leaving Darvish in for today's game worked. There's a good chance he'll want his bullpen fresh for tomorrow's matchup of Kazumi Saitoh vs. Tomoya Yagi, as well.
The crowd was a sellout crowd and red/white Fighters logo placards were given out to fans at the gate at the Sapporo dome. In addition to those, several homemade signs could be spotted, cheering for individual players, or one that said "Let's go to Nagoya!", a reference to the Chunichi Dragons clinching the Central League pennant. The blue inflatable dolphins were out in force for Ogasawara as well.
Bob Timmerman is in Japan for the playoff series and writing about it on his blog. His Game 1 account, with a few photos, can be found here.
My late-night semi-coherent game-updating babblings from liveblogging last night's game are still up as well.
PL Playoff Liveblogging
I am practically going nuts here waiting for the game to start.
It looks like you actually CAN watch it from outside Japan, anyway -- but you have to be using Internet Explorer and install their viewer, it doesn't seem to work with Firefox. I'll know for sure in about two hours.
Yahoo! TV Bank / Fighters (video feed)
Yahoo! Japan Gameday (webpage with game info)
It starts at about 2am Pacific time. Yu Darvish is starting for the Nippon Ham Fighters, and Toshiya Sugiuchi is starting for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. Darvish just turned 20 in August. Sugiuchi won the Sawamura last year. It should be interesting.
I'm going to try to take a nap if I can calm down enough to, and then in theory I'll sit around and liveblog the game a bit! If you're up late too, feel free to chime in.
Lineups, LL-style (but without the cool border):
I have videofeed! But it's only at the tiny 160x100 screen cleanly, sigh.
Top of the first inning: Kawasaki singles legitimately to left, Ohmura singles annoyingly into the left corner. Shibahara bunts them ahead, Darvish fielding it, and now we have Matsunaka. I have to hope he gets back his normal postseason curse. Darvish seems to hope so too, as he throws the 2-2 pitch into the dirt... and the 3-2 pitch. Foul into the stands. Next pitch, foul bounce back off the plate. Next pitch... he hits it to left field. Back, back... CAUGHT by Hichori Morimoto, NICE throw in to the plate, but Kawasaki barely avoids the tag and scores on the play. 1-0 Hawks, 2 out. Zuleta's up, and he's also big and scary... and walks. Now Honda's up and... damn this small screen. They claim he was hit by a pitch, I swear he fouled it off. Bases loaded and Jolbert Cabrera is up. OH CRAP.... OH NEVERMIND! Pops out to Kensuke Tanaka. I love Kensuke Tanaka very very much. 1-0 Hawks, three outs.
Bottom of the first: Hichori Morimoto pops out to center. I am singing the Kensuke Tanaka theme song because I am a big dork. It worked! He singled to left :) And now we have Ogasawara up to bat! Yay! Kensuke steals second base, and it's clearly rattled Sugiuchi as we're up to a 3-1 count on Ogasawara... okay, make that a 4-1 count, runners on first and second with one out, and here's Seguignol. who chases a bunch of stupid pitches, then fouls off a few, and ultimately strikes out. but that's okay because Atsunori Inaba's up and he's awesome too. well, except the part where he pops to shallow center and Kawasaki catches it. oh well, 1-0 still, inning over, they're showing highlights of the Saitoh-Matsuzaka match inbetween innings :)
Top of the second: Inamine goes DOWN on three straight pitches! As I'm commenting that it's a good thing Johjima came to Seattle and the Hawks have no catchers who can hit, Yamazaki ALSO goes down on strikes! Kawasaki squares away to bunt and gets hit in the knee with a pitch (on the replay that's clear, it looked at first like he pretty much squared away to bunt and got in the way of the pitch, this small screen sucks). Fortunately, Ohmura pops up behind third in foul territory and shortstop Makoto Kaneko pulls a Betancourt and is out there to catch it. Still 1-0 Hawks.
Bottom of the second: iiiiiit's Shinjo! who hits a grounder that bounces off the pitcher, then a charging Honda doesn't get the throw to first to time, so Shinjo's aboard with an infield single! Macias grounds out, advancing Shinjo to second. While Tsuruoka's up to bat, Sugiuchi throws what the announcers call a wild pitch and Shinjo advances to third. (however, on the replay I really think Yamazaki could have blocked that ball better.) crap. Tsuruoka grounds out to Cabrera at third, which also unfortunately holds Shinjo to the bag, so it's 2 outs with a runner on third. Makoto Kaneko pops up to the infield, caught by first baseman Julio Zuleta, and that's three outs. Still 1-0 Hawks.
Top of the third: Darvish is finally settling in AND Shibahara sucks, going down on a called third strike. Or maybe not, as he walks Matsunaka on a slider that dives just a little bit too much. Or maybe he is! He strikes Zuleta out on a pitch that barely bites the low inside corner. That was a BEAUTIFUL pitch, too. It's hard to remember sometimes that Darvish just turned 20 in August. And ANOTHER beautiful pitch, he strikes Honda out on a 150km/h fastball straight down the middle. That was great. Still 1-0 Hawks.
Bottom of the third: YAKINIKU ERIKA... I mean, Hichori Morimoto singles to center. Kensuke bunts him over to second, and here comes Ogasawara! There are a LOT of people with inflatable dolphins cheering for him, heh, I should try to get a screencap. It's a 3-1 count on Ogasawara and... eek, okay, nice pitch by Sugiuchi for 3-2, but then an awful pitch by Sugiuchi and now Ogasawara's walking to first and Hichori goes to second. Seguignol's up, and... and he singles to left! and Hichori scores!!!! WOOOOOOO. Okay, now it's 1-1, Inaba's up. Seguignol looked absolutely delighted standing on first, that was pretty awesome AAAAAAAAND oh. Oh man! Inaba launched a pitch into the RF stands but barely foul. sadly, after that he popped up to short right and shortstop Kawasaki went back to catch it. And here's Shinjo... and HERE'S SHINJO SINGLING to right and Ogasawara scoring on it! woooo. Macias flies out to center but who cares? It's 2-1 and Shinjo looks like the happiest man in the world. Inning break.
Top of the fourth: Jolbert Cabrera hits a pop fly foul and Ogasawara catches it (man, the foul zone there is gigantic). Oh, hey, look at that, Inamine singled to center. Now here's Yamazaki and... whoa, what the hell just happened? OH MY GOD. Okay, Yamazaki goes to bunt and POPS OUT TO THIRD HAHAHAHA. Macias charged in and caught the ball nearly at the ground along the third base -- that was awesome -- and then like three pitches later with Kawasaki at bat, Inamine gets NAILED trying to steal second. EAT THAT, HAWKS. Nice throw by Tsuruoka and a great play by Makoto Kaneko. Still 2-1 Fighters.
Bottom of the fourth: Shintarou Yoshitake replaces Sugiuchi on the mound. Sugiuchi's line: 3 innings, 56 pitches, 1 strikeout, 2 walks, 5 hits, 2 runs.
Shinya Tsuruoka grounds to third and Jolbert Cabrera throws to first in plenty of time to get him out. Then Makoto Kaneko pops out to left field, easy catch for Nobuhiko Matsunaka. Morimoto grounds out for a quick inning. Still 2-1 Fighters.
Top of the fifth: Oh, hey, look, it's Munenori Kawasaki at bat again. He singles to left. Ohmura bunts him to second, Darvish fielding it. And... and Shibahara SUCKS and strikes out. Why the heck is he batting third? Watch, now that I've said that he's going to totally go Scutaro on us in a crucial moment. Matsunaka grounds out to second, and that's the inning. Still 2-1 Fighters.
Bottom of the fifth: Yasushi Kamiuchi replaces Yoshitake on the mound. Yoshitake's line is a 1-2-3 inning on 12 pitches.
There's a guy holding a sign in the stands that says "Nagoya e ikuzo" ("let's go to Nagoya!", a reference to the Chunichi Dragons clinching), I LOVE IT :)
Kensuke gatsu de GOGOGO, bokura wa matsuyo kagayake shunkaaaa...grounded out to second. Doh. It's Ogasawara time! Though he swings so hard at the first pitch he turns around and has to squat to recover his balance, oops. Oof, and he also grounds out to second. Seguignol strikes out, though he probably could have run on the third strike as it bounced in the dirt, ah well. Still 2-1 Fighters.
HOLY CRAP! The Fighters have dancing groundskeepers too! I actually just realized I hadn't seen a Fighters home game since 2003, as they weren't broadcasting them outside of Japan earlier this year, so I'd just see them online when they played at the Hawks or Eagles... and when I see them in Japan it's always as the visiting team. Crazy.
Anyway, top of the sixth: Darvish keeps wiping sweat off his forehead, I think he totally needs a handkerchief... and just as I type that, he strikes out Julio Zuleta on a slider. Heh. Honda walks on a high-and-outside pitch and the entire infield comes in to the mound to see how Darvish is doing; he's up to 88 pitches after that 8-pitch at-bat, so I guess we'll be seeing some of the Fighters bullpen soon. Here's Cabrera... who singles to left. Ok, runners on first and second, and Inamine at the bat... he ALMOST grounds into a double play, 6-4-3, but barely beats out the throw at first. So, two outs, runners at first and third. Minoru Honma comes in to pinch-hit for Yamazaki, and... karaburi sanshin! STRIKEOUT! That's 100 pitches or so for Darvish now. Still 2-1 Fighters.
Bottom of the sixth: Naoki Matoba comes in as catcher, batting ninth (where Honma had pinch-hit for Yamazaki).
Inaba flies out to foul territory in right field, and Jolbert Cabrera is there to make the catch. Shinjo walks. Macias strikes out. Darvish is still throwing on the sidelines and I sort of hope they don't keep him out there for the seventh. Tsuruoka flies out to right field and I think Honda made the catch, it looked like a bit of a clusterbunch for a second there. Still 2-1 Fighters.
Top of the seventh: Yuuji Iiyama is playing third in place of Jose Macias. Yu Darvish is still on the mound for the Fighters.
Kawasaki grounds out to short. And so does Ohmura. Have I mentioned that I love Makoto Kaneko? And have I mentioned that I love Yu Darvish? And that Shibahara REALLY SUCKS? That's a strikeout, ending the inning in like eight pitches. Now pardon me while I sing along to the Fighters fight song for the inning break. F-I-GHT-ERS, let's go!
Bottom of the seventh: More love for Kaneko, as he singles to center. Hichori Morimoto bunts him over to second, and I hear the oendan singing the "chance" songs, and I think it's likely Kamiuchi's coming off the mound soon, although he just struck out Kensuke Tanaka. Yeah -- conference on the mound, though it doesn't make sense to take him out right before a lefty hitting god like Ogasawara, does it? Oh... hey, that's a good way to deal with Ogasawara -- intentionally walk him. Yeah.
Earth to Softbank: Fernando Seguignol is a switch-hitter.
Oh well, they're taking out lefty Kamiuchi anyway and putting in the rookie righty Akihiro Yanase, who DID pitch pretty admirably the other night against the Lions. Kamiuchi's line: 49 pitches, 2.2 innings, 1 hit, 3 strikeouts, 2 walks (one intentional).
Gee, that helped. Seguignol walked, and now the bases are loaded, two outs, for Atsunori Inaba... who just threw a pitch that Naoki Matoba almost had to eat to keep from getting away. Except a few pitches later, Inaba pops up another one to short, caught by Munenori Kawasaki. Doh. Still 2-1 Fighters, though.
Top of the eighth: Ok, Inaba might be sucking at the plate tonight, but he just made a nice catch on a Matsunaka low liner to right -- if he doesn't catch it, that's easily a double, maybe a triple. Yeah, Darvish is still out there. Zuleta singles to left, right after hitting a foul liner to right that Inaba ALMOST catches at the wall. And then Honda hits a long fly ball to Inaba as well, which he catches, so that's two outs. Jolbert Cabrera is at the plate and.. and... and he strikes out! Wow! That's 124 pitches for Darvish and 9 strikeouts. Awesome! Still 2-1 Fighters.
I am really glad I took an hour nap earlier, because it's 5am now and I'd be falling over dead by now. Fortunately, I have some great baseball snacks to give me a sugar rush :)
Bottom of the eighth: Aww, Shinjo really hit a long one to center, but not quite far enough and Ohmura catches it on the warning track. And wow, they're actually letting Iiyama bat for himself. And wow, he walked! Yanase is not having such a great night tonight. Oo, Tsuruoka hit one into the right corner for a single, though Iiyama got from first to third on it. Wheee! Ah, and Yanase is gone. Let's see... to replace him, they brought in another rookie youngster, Yoshiaki Fujioka, who I don't think I've seen before, but he's pretty cute, and has a fun sidearm pitching motion. Yanase's line for the evening: 20 pitches, .2 innings, 2 walks, no strikeouts, one hit. (And when Iiyama scores, one run credited to Yanase as well.)
Makoto Kaneko, yay, hits a ball to shallow center which falls for a single, and Iiyama scores! WOOOOOOOOOOO! WOooo..sigh, Hichori just grounded into a double play, 5-4-3. But that's okay. Fighters are now ahead 3-1!
Top of the ninth: Darvish is STILL on the mound, and Inamine is "at bat", by which I mean, he's popping out to left field, where Hichori Morimoto makes the easy catch. Now Ryuuma Kidokoro pinch-hits for Naoki Matoba, and singles to left. Trey Hillman comes out to the mound to see how Darvish is doing... and he's still out there! The crowd's yelling "Ganbare ganbare Darvish", which is nice of them. Munenori Kawasaki's at the plate, and he... grounds into a forceout! I think it was a 3-6 but I'm not sure. Kawasaki's on at first, two outs, Ohmura at the plate. And... holy crap, Darvish is STILL throwing in the 140's and... two strikes quickly, then a ball. Ohmura fouls one backwards.
AND DARVISH'S 138TH PITCH OF THE NIGHT STRIKES HIM OUT.
3-1 Fighters!!!!!!!
Darvish's line for the evening: 138 pitches, 9 innings, 7 hits, 1 run, 11 strikeouts, 2 hit batters, 3 walks.
It's 5:30am, I think I will stick around to hear Darvish's hero interview and then go to sleep for a few hours before work.
So, umm, if you happen to be reading this in the morning on Wednesday -- is this completely incoherent? Should I try to do this again tomorrow night? It's supposedly Kazumi Saitoh vs. Tomoya Yagi, which is going to totally break my heart either way.
(Deanna heads off to sleep, humming "susume Fighters, shouri no otoko..." happily to herself.)
It looks like you actually CAN watch it from outside Japan, anyway -- but you have to be using Internet Explorer and install their viewer, it doesn't seem to work with Firefox. I'll know for sure in about two hours.
Yahoo! TV Bank / Fighters (video feed)
Yahoo! Japan Gameday (webpage with game info)
It starts at about 2am Pacific time. Yu Darvish is starting for the Nippon Ham Fighters, and Toshiya Sugiuchi is starting for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. Darvish just turned 20 in August. Sugiuchi won the Sawamura last year. It should be interesting.
I'm going to try to take a nap if I can calm down enough to, and then in theory I'll sit around and liveblog the game a bit! If you're up late too, feel free to chime in.
Lineups, LL-style (but without the cool border):
Kawasaki SS Hichori LF
Ohmura CF Kensuke 2B
Shibahara RF Ogasawara 1B
Matsunaka LF Seguignol DH
Zuleta 1B Inaba RF
Honda 2B SHINJO CF
J. Cabrera 3B Macias 3B
Inamine "DH" Tsuruoka C
Yamazaki C Kaneko SS
---------- ----------
Sugiuchi (7-5, 3.53) Darvish (12-5, 2.89)
I have videofeed! But it's only at the tiny 160x100 screen cleanly, sigh.
Top of the first inning: Kawasaki singles legitimately to left, Ohmura singles annoyingly into the left corner. Shibahara bunts them ahead, Darvish fielding it, and now we have Matsunaka. I have to hope he gets back his normal postseason curse. Darvish seems to hope so too, as he throws the 2-2 pitch into the dirt... and the 3-2 pitch. Foul into the stands. Next pitch, foul bounce back off the plate. Next pitch... he hits it to left field. Back, back... CAUGHT by Hichori Morimoto, NICE throw in to the plate, but Kawasaki barely avoids the tag and scores on the play. 1-0 Hawks, 2 out. Zuleta's up, and he's also big and scary... and walks. Now Honda's up and... damn this small screen. They claim he was hit by a pitch, I swear he fouled it off. Bases loaded and Jolbert Cabrera is up. OH CRAP.... OH NEVERMIND! Pops out to Kensuke Tanaka. I love Kensuke Tanaka very very much. 1-0 Hawks, three outs.
Bottom of the first: Hichori Morimoto pops out to center. I am singing the Kensuke Tanaka theme song because I am a big dork. It worked! He singled to left :) And now we have Ogasawara up to bat! Yay! Kensuke steals second base, and it's clearly rattled Sugiuchi as we're up to a 3-1 count on Ogasawara... okay, make that a 4-1 count, runners on first and second with one out, and here's Seguignol. who chases a bunch of stupid pitches, then fouls off a few, and ultimately strikes out. but that's okay because Atsunori Inaba's up and he's awesome too. well, except the part where he pops to shallow center and Kawasaki catches it. oh well, 1-0 still, inning over, they're showing highlights of the Saitoh-Matsuzaka match inbetween innings :)
Top of the second: Inamine goes DOWN on three straight pitches! As I'm commenting that it's a good thing Johjima came to Seattle and the Hawks have no catchers who can hit, Yamazaki ALSO goes down on strikes! Kawasaki squares away to bunt and gets hit in the knee with a pitch (on the replay that's clear, it looked at first like he pretty much squared away to bunt and got in the way of the pitch, this small screen sucks). Fortunately, Ohmura pops up behind third in foul territory and shortstop Makoto Kaneko pulls a Betancourt and is out there to catch it. Still 1-0 Hawks.
Bottom of the second: iiiiiit's Shinjo! who hits a grounder that bounces off the pitcher, then a charging Honda doesn't get the throw to first to time, so Shinjo's aboard with an infield single! Macias grounds out, advancing Shinjo to second. While Tsuruoka's up to bat, Sugiuchi throws what the announcers call a wild pitch and Shinjo advances to third. (however, on the replay I really think Yamazaki could have blocked that ball better.) crap. Tsuruoka grounds out to Cabrera at third, which also unfortunately holds Shinjo to the bag, so it's 2 outs with a runner on third. Makoto Kaneko pops up to the infield, caught by first baseman Julio Zuleta, and that's three outs. Still 1-0 Hawks.
Top of the third: Darvish is finally settling in AND Shibahara sucks, going down on a called third strike. Or maybe not, as he walks Matsunaka on a slider that dives just a little bit too much. Or maybe he is! He strikes Zuleta out on a pitch that barely bites the low inside corner. That was a BEAUTIFUL pitch, too. It's hard to remember sometimes that Darvish just turned 20 in August. And ANOTHER beautiful pitch, he strikes Honda out on a 150km/h fastball straight down the middle. That was great. Still 1-0 Hawks.
Bottom of the third: YAKINIKU ERIKA... I mean, Hichori Morimoto singles to center. Kensuke bunts him over to second, and here comes Ogasawara! There are a LOT of people with inflatable dolphins cheering for him, heh, I should try to get a screencap. It's a 3-1 count on Ogasawara and... eek, okay, nice pitch by Sugiuchi for 3-2, but then an awful pitch by Sugiuchi and now Ogasawara's walking to first and Hichori goes to second. Seguignol's up, and... and he singles to left! and Hichori scores!!!! WOOOOOOO. Okay, now it's 1-1, Inaba's up. Seguignol looked absolutely delighted standing on first, that was pretty awesome AAAAAAAAND oh. Oh man! Inaba launched a pitch into the RF stands but barely foul. sadly, after that he popped up to short right and shortstop Kawasaki went back to catch it. And here's Shinjo... and HERE'S SHINJO SINGLING to right and Ogasawara scoring on it! woooo. Macias flies out to center but who cares? It's 2-1 and Shinjo looks like the happiest man in the world. Inning break.
Top of the fourth: Jolbert Cabrera hits a pop fly foul and Ogasawara catches it (man, the foul zone there is gigantic). Oh, hey, look at that, Inamine singled to center. Now here's Yamazaki and... whoa, what the hell just happened? OH MY GOD. Okay, Yamazaki goes to bunt and POPS OUT TO THIRD HAHAHAHA. Macias charged in and caught the ball nearly at the ground along the third base -- that was awesome -- and then like three pitches later with Kawasaki at bat, Inamine gets NAILED trying to steal second. EAT THAT, HAWKS. Nice throw by Tsuruoka and a great play by Makoto Kaneko. Still 2-1 Fighters.
Bottom of the fourth: Shintarou Yoshitake replaces Sugiuchi on the mound. Sugiuchi's line: 3 innings, 56 pitches, 1 strikeout, 2 walks, 5 hits, 2 runs.
Shinya Tsuruoka grounds to third and Jolbert Cabrera throws to first in plenty of time to get him out. Then Makoto Kaneko pops out to left field, easy catch for Nobuhiko Matsunaka. Morimoto grounds out for a quick inning. Still 2-1 Fighters.
Top of the fifth: Oh, hey, look, it's Munenori Kawasaki at bat again. He singles to left. Ohmura bunts him to second, Darvish fielding it. And... and Shibahara SUCKS and strikes out. Why the heck is he batting third? Watch, now that I've said that he's going to totally go Scutaro on us in a crucial moment. Matsunaka grounds out to second, and that's the inning. Still 2-1 Fighters.
Bottom of the fifth: Yasushi Kamiuchi replaces Yoshitake on the mound. Yoshitake's line is a 1-2-3 inning on 12 pitches.
There's a guy holding a sign in the stands that says "Nagoya e ikuzo" ("let's go to Nagoya!", a reference to the Chunichi Dragons clinching), I LOVE IT :)
Kensuke gatsu de GOGOGO, bokura wa matsuyo kagayake shunkaaaa...grounded out to second. Doh. It's Ogasawara time! Though he swings so hard at the first pitch he turns around and has to squat to recover his balance, oops. Oof, and he also grounds out to second. Seguignol strikes out, though he probably could have run on the third strike as it bounced in the dirt, ah well. Still 2-1 Fighters.
HOLY CRAP! The Fighters have dancing groundskeepers too! I actually just realized I hadn't seen a Fighters home game since 2003, as they weren't broadcasting them outside of Japan earlier this year, so I'd just see them online when they played at the Hawks or Eagles... and when I see them in Japan it's always as the visiting team. Crazy.
Anyway, top of the sixth: Darvish keeps wiping sweat off his forehead, I think he totally needs a handkerchief... and just as I type that, he strikes out Julio Zuleta on a slider. Heh. Honda walks on a high-and-outside pitch and the entire infield comes in to the mound to see how Darvish is doing; he's up to 88 pitches after that 8-pitch at-bat, so I guess we'll be seeing some of the Fighters bullpen soon. Here's Cabrera... who singles to left. Ok, runners on first and second, and Inamine at the bat... he ALMOST grounds into a double play, 6-4-3, but barely beats out the throw at first. So, two outs, runners at first and third. Minoru Honma comes in to pinch-hit for Yamazaki, and... karaburi sanshin! STRIKEOUT! That's 100 pitches or so for Darvish now. Still 2-1 Fighters.
Bottom of the sixth: Naoki Matoba comes in as catcher, batting ninth (where Honma had pinch-hit for Yamazaki).
Inaba flies out to foul territory in right field, and Jolbert Cabrera is there to make the catch. Shinjo walks. Macias strikes out. Darvish is still throwing on the sidelines and I sort of hope they don't keep him out there for the seventh. Tsuruoka flies out to right field and I think Honda made the catch, it looked like a bit of a clusterbunch for a second there. Still 2-1 Fighters.
Top of the seventh: Yuuji Iiyama is playing third in place of Jose Macias. Yu Darvish is still on the mound for the Fighters.
Kawasaki grounds out to short. And so does Ohmura. Have I mentioned that I love Makoto Kaneko? And have I mentioned that I love Yu Darvish? And that Shibahara REALLY SUCKS? That's a strikeout, ending the inning in like eight pitches. Now pardon me while I sing along to the Fighters fight song for the inning break. F-I-GHT-ERS, let's go!
Bottom of the seventh: More love for Kaneko, as he singles to center. Hichori Morimoto bunts him over to second, and I hear the oendan singing the "chance" songs, and I think it's likely Kamiuchi's coming off the mound soon, although he just struck out Kensuke Tanaka. Yeah -- conference on the mound, though it doesn't make sense to take him out right before a lefty hitting god like Ogasawara, does it? Oh... hey, that's a good way to deal with Ogasawara -- intentionally walk him. Yeah.
Earth to Softbank: Fernando Seguignol is a switch-hitter.
Oh well, they're taking out lefty Kamiuchi anyway and putting in the rookie righty Akihiro Yanase, who DID pitch pretty admirably the other night against the Lions. Kamiuchi's line: 49 pitches, 2.2 innings, 1 hit, 3 strikeouts, 2 walks (one intentional).
Gee, that helped. Seguignol walked, and now the bases are loaded, two outs, for Atsunori Inaba... who just threw a pitch that Naoki Matoba almost had to eat to keep from getting away. Except a few pitches later, Inaba pops up another one to short, caught by Munenori Kawasaki. Doh. Still 2-1 Fighters, though.
Top of the eighth: Ok, Inaba might be sucking at the plate tonight, but he just made a nice catch on a Matsunaka low liner to right -- if he doesn't catch it, that's easily a double, maybe a triple. Yeah, Darvish is still out there. Zuleta singles to left, right after hitting a foul liner to right that Inaba ALMOST catches at the wall. And then Honda hits a long fly ball to Inaba as well, which he catches, so that's two outs. Jolbert Cabrera is at the plate and.. and... and he strikes out! Wow! That's 124 pitches for Darvish and 9 strikeouts. Awesome! Still 2-1 Fighters.
I am really glad I took an hour nap earlier, because it's 5am now and I'd be falling over dead by now. Fortunately, I have some great baseball snacks to give me a sugar rush :)
Bottom of the eighth: Aww, Shinjo really hit a long one to center, but not quite far enough and Ohmura catches it on the warning track. And wow, they're actually letting Iiyama bat for himself. And wow, he walked! Yanase is not having such a great night tonight. Oo, Tsuruoka hit one into the right corner for a single, though Iiyama got from first to third on it. Wheee! Ah, and Yanase is gone. Let's see... to replace him, they brought in another rookie youngster, Yoshiaki Fujioka, who I don't think I've seen before, but he's pretty cute, and has a fun sidearm pitching motion. Yanase's line for the evening: 20 pitches, .2 innings, 2 walks, no strikeouts, one hit. (And when Iiyama scores, one run credited to Yanase as well.)
Makoto Kaneko, yay, hits a ball to shallow center which falls for a single, and Iiyama scores! WOOOOOOOOOOO! WOooo..sigh, Hichori just grounded into a double play, 5-4-3. But that's okay. Fighters are now ahead 3-1!
Top of the ninth: Darvish is STILL on the mound, and Inamine is "at bat", by which I mean, he's popping out to left field, where Hichori Morimoto makes the easy catch. Now Ryuuma Kidokoro pinch-hits for Naoki Matoba, and singles to left. Trey Hillman comes out to the mound to see how Darvish is doing... and he's still out there! The crowd's yelling "Ganbare ganbare Darvish", which is nice of them. Munenori Kawasaki's at the plate, and he... grounds into a forceout! I think it was a 3-6 but I'm not sure. Kawasaki's on at first, two outs, Ohmura at the plate. And... holy crap, Darvish is STILL throwing in the 140's and... two strikes quickly, then a ball. Ohmura fouls one backwards.
AND DARVISH'S 138TH PITCH OF THE NIGHT STRIKES HIM OUT.
3-1 Fighters!!!!!!!
Darvish's line for the evening: 138 pitches, 9 innings, 7 hits, 1 run, 11 strikeouts, 2 hit batters, 3 walks.
It's 5:30am, I think I will stick around to hear Darvish's hero interview and then go to sleep for a few hours before work.
So, umm, if you happen to be reading this in the morning on Wednesday -- is this completely incoherent? Should I try to do this again tomorrow night? It's supposedly Kazumi Saitoh vs. Tomoya Yagi, which is going to totally break my heart either way.
(Deanna heads off to sleep, humming "susume Fighters, shouri no otoko..." happily to herself.)
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