Day 2 - Game 4 - Mito Shougyou vs. Kagoshima Kougyou

The final game of the day had one of my favorite teams, Kagoshima Kougyou vs Ibaraki's Mito Shougyou.

And early on Kagoshima's ace, Uchimura, had the Mito lineup looking silly, striking out 6 in his first time through the lineup.

Honestly, while it is almost 2 years removed from when I saw them in person, and Mito probably isn't the best team to compare skills against, Kagoshima looked all like the team that made it to the Best 8 in 2006 with good pitching and good defense.

Kagoshima opened the scoring in the 2nd. P Uchimura singled through the left side and moved along by SS Tashiro. 3B Ishigami followed with another single to the same place putting runners at the corners. And if putting on a squeeze is enough, 2B Arimura instead tries a safety bunt for a single! While the bunt hit is unsuccessful, the squeeze is and Kagoshima leads 1-0.

In the 3rd, Kagoshima gets the leadoff batter on base again, this time on a walk. He's moved along to 2nd on a sac bunt. With two down, Nakamichi takes the 1-0 pitch over a leaping 1B Fujita scoring Ooshige.

As the game progressed, Mito's batters were starting to make contact with the ball, but the results were the same. In fact, their first run would come only with the help of Kagoshima themselves.

Top 5, Mito still down 2-0. Fujita gets only the 2nd base hit with a grounder through the left side. Uchimura, in trying to keep Fujita close to the bag, makes a low pickoff throw that gets away from 1B Nakamichi allowing Fujita to advance to 2nd. With one out, Uchimura makes another bad throw - this time to 2nd, and Fujita advances to 3rd. To complete the trip, Onose hits a sharp ball to 3B Ishigami. But he can't field it cleanly and the throw isn't in time, allowing Fujita to score.

Kagoshima would quickly fix that in the bottom half of the frame. Leadoff batter Ootou would golf a pitch over the LF's head for a double. Fukusako immediately then sets down a bunt, but instead P Wakatsugi goes to 3rd! His throw tails away from the 3B and into LF allowing Ootou to score easily.

Mito would get only one more scoring opportunity in the game and would fall to Kagoshima Kougyou 3-1.