Fighters- Marines, 17 August 2002

(My first Pacific League game...apologies in adavance for any typos, I'm in a hurry to go get some dinner!)

The starting pitcher for the Fighters was Carlos Mirabal from New Jersey. He's a big 29-year-old right-hander who spent three years pitching in Taiwan and is now in this third year in Japan. He was trying to pick up his tenth win, entering the game at 9-4 with a 3.34 ERA. He didn't seem to have any exceptional pitches, but looked solid.

In the first, he allowed a single by Marines first baseman Kazuya Fukuura, who led the PL last year with a .346 average (he's 5, 44, .284 this season), but kept everyone else in the infield for an easy 12 pitch inning. The clean-up hitter and final out of the inning was Derrick May, who played for 6 clubs and was highly regarded as a young outfielder with the Cubs a decade ago. The Chiba Lotte fans had developed a cheer in English for him, "Let's go, D-May!" etc.

Starting for the Marines was Shunsuke Watanabe, a 4th round draft pick last season (0-2, 9.00 this season). He has a very unorthodox delivery. He does the slow Nomo stop-and-stretch but then drops to deliver the ball almost underhand. I saw Tekulve and Quisenberry, and I don't recall either dropping as low as Watanabe. I wondered how many times he's hit the mound with his hand, since he clears it only by a couple of inches. The ball was visibly climbing as it headed toward home plate.

In the first he breezed through the Fighters line-up, although he did go high in the count to the first two. Three up, three down, 19 pitches.

In the Marines' second, Mirabal made a nice play when left-fielder Kenji Morozumi tried to bunt his way on base with one out. Mirabal was quick off the mound, made a barehanded grab, and threw Morozumi (2, 13, .280) out. The next batter, right-fielder Takashi Tachikawa (6, 25, .252), walked, but otherwise the inning was uneventful. Mirabal did make himself work hard, though; going to three ball counts on three of the four hitters (and the other hitter saved him the bother by bunting the first pitch).

Fighters' 2nd- Out, one-two-three again. Two hitters went to full counts, with Sherman Obando (20, 50, .267), who I remember from his Rule 5 season with the Orioles, striking out swinging.

Marines' 3rd- Out in order on 6 pitches.

Fighters' 3rd- Right-fielder Yukio Tanaka (11, 36, .268) drove a 3-2 pitch (the 7th pitch in the at-bat) to the warning track in right, but in the end the Fighters went down in order. Watanabe had a perfect game intact after 3 innings, but his control had not been sharp and he hadn't been over-powering so there was no sense that it would last.

Marines' 4th- The second hitter, May, nearly took Mirabal out, but it wound up being just a routine fly ball at the track. Like American fans, a sizable portion of Japanese fans responds to every fly ball like it's going out, with an excited "OOOOOOO" becoming a subdued "ooooooo" as it becomes clear that the ball would be on the green side of the wall.

Fighters' 4th- With one out, center-fielder Tsutomu Ishimoto (1, .238) laid down a nice bunt for a single. Next up was first-baseman Michihiro Ogasawara (25, 61, .353), a bone-fide star. He has a bit of an unorthodox batting style. Left-handed, he steps in with his back foot out of the batter's box, and then stretches backwards a couple of times. He gets into his stance, which involves holding the bat away from his body and at about a 60 degree angle. I'd only seen him play during the All-Star games, but on this night it seemed to me that he was often just swinging wildly from the heels. On a 1-1 count, he hit a shallow fly to left. While Obando was batting, Ishimoto stole second, but all for naught as Obando stuck out swinging for the second time.

Marines's 5th- Morozumi topped a ball to Mirabal, but it had so much billiards action on it that the pitcher couldn't handle it. He looked like a bear trying to grab a waterbug and it bounced off and around him. Single for Morozumi, who advanced to second when Tachikawa grounded to first, but that was it for the inning.

Fighters' 5th- Out in order, but Yukio Tanaka drove a ball deep to right for a second consecutive at-bat, this one just shy of the track.

Marines' 6th- Mirabal walked leadoff hitter and shortstop Makoto Kosaka (0,8, .263). CF Saburo Omura (4, .282) sacrificed him to second. Mirabal walked Fukuura on 8 pitches. With runners on first and second, the clean-up hitter May had a fully set table, but he pulled the tablecloth with a bang and a clatter, a double play grounder, 4-6-3.

Fighters' 6th- Catcher Toshihiro Noguchi (4, 23, .251) started the inning with a line single to left. 2B Kensuke Tanaka (0, 8, .265) sacrificed him to second. All-Star SS Makoto Kaneko (6, 26, .290) slapped a grounder between short and second into left for a single, but Noguchi had to stop at third. Ishimoto took ball one, then hit a high-bouncer toward second. With one out, the Marines' 2B Masato Watanabe (who had replaced Taduharu Sakai at some point without me noticing, one of the difficulties of scoring a game between unfamiliar teams while being unable to understand the public address announcer) had probably been thinking of an inning-ending double play, but the ball bounced so high that there would have been no time for that. Thinking quickly, he threw the ball home, where catcher Toshiya Tsuji made the tag on Noguchi. There was a long argument about the call at home, more animated than any I'd seen before in Japan. Not exactly Earl Weaver or Billy Martin, but pretty insistent nonetheless (and equally unsuccessful). Once the dust cleared and the voices lowered, the Marines decided it was time to pull S. Watanabe from the mound, and brought in a left-hander, Soichi Fujita (0-1, 3.94) to face Ogaswara. The move didn't look so good as the count went to 3-1, a hitter's count, to the best hitter in the ballpark, but Fujita got him swinging on the next two pitches. On both Ogasawara looked like he was trying to send the ball out of the Dome, through the walls.

Still 0-0.

The Marines had the dullest 7th inning cheer I'd yet seen, just waving banners to recorded music.

Marines' 7th- 3B Kiyoshi Hatsushiba (10, 34, .211), a 14 year veteran who tied for the league RBI crown in 1995 with Ichiro Suzuki of the Orix Blue Wave and Yukio Tanaka of the Fighters, fouled off the first pitch of the inning. Then he sent the second pitch just over the left field wall on a rocket. Mirabal retired the next three batters, but the damage was done.

Marines, 1-0.

The Fighters' 7th inning cheer matched the Marines for dullness.

Fighters' 7th- Obando led off with a single to left, then LF D.T. Cromer (15, 43, .269), formerly of the Reds, struck out. With the right-handed hitting 3B Hayashi (my rosters showed #31 as catcher Masanori Taguchi) coming up, the Marines brought in RHP Brian Sikorski (2-6, 3.84), who had his sip of coffee with Texas in 2000. He struck out Hayashi on a foul tip and induced Yukio Tanaka to hit into a force.

Marines, 1-0.

Marines' 8th- 2B Watanabe led off with a soft liner caught in foul territory by Ogasawara, a nice play by the first-baseman. Kosaka then drilled a ball to left, which Cromer caught diving in foul territory, showing great range. Saburo singled to left. Fukuura drove a ball that was spiraling toward the ground quickly which Y. Tanaka caught at his shoe tops, another excellent play.

Marines, 1-0.

Fighters' 8th- Sikorski got Noguchi to ground to second, and then faced Kensuke Tanaka (0, .256). On the first pitch, Tanaka jolted the ball to left-center. Morozumi and Saburo raced back, and watched as it narrowly missed tying the score, instead bouncing off the top of the fence. Saburo brought the throw into the infield as Tanaka easily had a triple. Kaneko grounded to first, where Fukuura checked the runner back and made an unassisted putout. Ishimoto then sent a grounder up the middle for a single and a game-tying RBI. With Ogasawara coming up, the Marines again decided to bring in a left-hander, Takashi Kawai (2-1, 3.23) and again the move worked perfectly. Ogasawara again brought a breeze to the Dome while striking out. He's one of the best, but this wasn't his day.

Tied, 1-1.

Marines' 9th- With Mirabal still pitching (I counted 104 pitches in the first 8 innings, and 27 in the 9th), May led off with a single to left. Hatsushiba grounded to third, with May advancing. Morozumi walked. On a 2-2 pitch, Tachikawa pounded the ball into the turf, and the high bounce took it just over Hayashi and out of his reach, into left. May scored the go-ahead run on the single. Mirabal retired the last two batters in the inning.

Marines, 2-1.

Fighters' 9th- The Marines brought in Masahide Kobayashi (2-1, 1.29), not to be confused with their All-Star Hiroyuki Kobayashi, to close the game. The right-hander got Obando on a fly to right. Cromer, after working to a full count, gave a ball a ride to left which had the home team fans on the edge of their seats, but Morozumi hauled it in for the second out. On a 1-2 count, Hayashi took a called strike three to end the game.

The final- Marines 2, Fighters 1.