Marines Retake Lead

After spending 15 days in first place, the Marines dropped to third place for one day.  But fine pitching by Minchey for his third win, and a grand slam by little Kosaka broke their 4 game losing skid to retake first place.Facing the streaking first place Buffaloes at on a beautiful (but chilly) Sunday afternoon at Chiba Marine Stadium, Lotte was finally able to put enough runs together for a victory.  It seems like it's been a week!  But with Minchey getting his first home win in three attempts, the two runs in the first were actually enough.

Minchey had struggled his first two outings at windy Chiba Marine Stadium.  The swirlling winds are like Candlestick Park.  And it was a windy weekend.  (I didn't hear what the wind speed was in Chiba, but it was surpassing 10m/sec across the bay in Yokohama.)  Minchey scattered 6 hits in his first complete game of the season, only allowing two hits in a single inning in the second, a double by Isobe and an RBI triple by Furukubo for Kintetsu's only run of the game.  The two walks that Minchey gave up were in innings where he didn't allow any hits at all, so he never really got into any big jams.

Lotte scored a pair in the bottom of the first to strike first.  A lead off double by Kosaka, then a two-out double by May accounted for the first run.  Kitetsu's starter Akabori walked the next two batters, then Nakamura committed a big error at third with bases loaded to allow the second run to come home.

With a one run lead going to the bottom of the 6th, Lotte's bats came alive.  Five consecutive hits were topped off by Kosaka's first home run of the season, the 8th of his career, a grand slam well into the Lotte chearing section in right.  The best shot of the game was him giving high tens to his team mates, concluding with a giant leap into the air to reach the 2.03 meter Minchey's hands well above his head.  Kosaka, only being 1.68 meters tall, had to air it like Jordon to reach them.  When I saw it on TV, I though that Minchey was on a step, but the photo in today's newspaper shows that he's on the ground.  It looks like me picking up one of my kids!

Anyway, Borick added another run on a lead off solo home run n the 7th to conclude the scoring, making the game 8-1 in favor of Lotte.

But...  Lotte had fallen into third after the previous day's loss as Daiei had been streaking as well.  But as it turned out, Daiei lost a heart breaker soon after this game was finished, Cabrera hitting a three run shot off of ace closer Pedraza, one out away from a win.  This was the same situation, and same pitch, that Pedraza struck Cabrera out looking at the night before to end the game and take 2nd place (percentage points behind Kintetsu).

So, how long can Lotte keep the lead this time?