Lotte Defeats Blue Wave, 0.5 Out

Ono and M. Kobayashi combined last night (6/5) to blank the slumping Blue Wave 1-0 at Chiba Marine Stadium in front of a Monday Night Pa crowd of 10,000.  While the Maines are still in 3rd place, they only trail front running Daiei by half a game, and 2nd place Orix by .002 percentage points.  Kintetsu, who had the day off, is a mere half game behind them.  The Pacific League race is starting to heat up as we go into the summer.Ono's 4 hit performance improves his record against the Blue Wave to a perfect 5 and 0 since last year.  Is wave killing a sport?  Kobayashi tuned his 7th save in a row in as many chances.

The lone run of the game came in the bottom of the 8th.  Ebisu had started for Orix and was pitching a gem himself.  Sawai led off the bottom of the 8th against Ebisu by doubling to right.  This was the 3rd double Ebisu had given up out of a total of 6 hits.  After Fujii sacrificed pinch runner Saburo over to 3rd, Ebisu retired from the mound in favor of Ohkubo.  But Ohkubo allowed a sacrifice fly to right by Kosaka that was a very close play at the plate.  And, that's all she wrote.

The shutout loss was Orix's 3rd in a row, tying a club record.  The record for most scoreless games in a row is held by Taiei when they lost 5 shutouts in a row back in 1953.  The Wave will be facing the Pacific League's top pitcher in ERA, "Johnny" Kuroki (2.00 ERA) this evening at Chiba Marine Stadium.  Will they break out?  Or will Johnny continue to blank his opponents?  It promises to be a good game.