Pro Yakyu Live! PL Playoffs Stage One

Game One of Stage One just ended. An exciting pitcher's duel between Watanabe and Matsuzaka through seven innings. Kuriyama led off the game by taking Watanabe's first pitch over the right field fense, giving the Lions a quick 1-0 lead. Watanabe gave up back to back hits right after that, but settled down.

In the fifth inning, the Marines put together one of their "Marine Gun" attacks, Imae beating out an infield single and Hashimoto singling up the middle. Nishioka then laid down a sacrifice that Matsuzaka bobbled trying to get the runner at third; E-1 making the bases loaded with nobody out. Hori then sent the ball all the way to the fense in left, but the 10 meter/second winds kept it from going over. The resulting sacrifice fly, though, tied the game a 1-1.

Each team threatened a couple of times, but came up blank. Until Mitsui took over for Matsuzaka (who threw in excess of 140 pitches through seven). Fukuura led off the bottom of the 8th with a double off of Mitsui, Saburo singled up the middle to put runners at the corners, then Franco came through with a single up the middle to take a 2-1 lead for Lotte.

M. Kobayashi made it interesting in the top of the nineth, but got pinch hitter Hirano to ground out into a game ending double play to finish it.

If you elect to listen to the game audio be warned, you won't get nearly the excitement level expressed above. I was listening to the radio and basically translating what I heard. Since I need to hear what's going on, it made it rather difficult to talk during the plays. The result is probably the most boring game broadcast you've ever listened to. Tomorrow's game is simularly not on a TV channel I get, so I'm afraid that it will be equally as bad via audio.

It would be nice to have a few brave soles give the audio a listen to and tell me if it's even worth bothering to do for the remainder of Stage One. (Cross your fingers for Stage Two broadcasts.) I think that maybe the chat room might be a better medium for passing on games I listen to rather than audio. I look for your feedback on this matter. Before 2:00 pm JST tomorrow.

Anyway, while you may not be moved by the broadcast itself, Game One was moving! I look forward to the remainder of the playoffs, then the Nippon Series.

GO MARINES! I like the Lions, but this year's Marines are a team of destiny. It's meant to be Marines vs. Hanshin in the Series. Once the Lions settle down and have their young roster all decided, they'll be right back up there. Unfortunately, Matsuzaka and Cabrera may be gone by then.

Marines advance to Stage Two. As a Met fan, I'm rooting for Bobby V., Agbayani, Franco and the rest of the team to go all the way.

The Chiba Lotte Marines defeated the Seibu Lions in Game Two by a score of 3-1 to advance to Stage Two against the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks in Fukuoka starting Wednesday.

I would like to thank the person who e-mailed me with encouragement to continue broadcasting, and think that this one was much better than yesterday's game. I could still use more practice translating straight from the radio, though. To listen to the full game, download the MP3 here [40MB in size]. As always, feel free to share the MP3 with your friends and on peer to peer networks.

Gambare Lotte in Stage Two!

Everybody seems to have forgotten that the Hawks finished with the best record in the Pacific League. But hey, even if the Hawks lose out to the Marines, I'll be cheering for them in the Japan Series.