In flight ...
Discussion in the Japanese Baseball Daily forum
About
This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
Copyright (c) 1995-2024 JapaneseBaseball.com.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.
Clutch hits carry Eagles to 2-0 mark at home
The pressure of winning at home might have made the Rakuten Eagles tight, but playing the hapless Orix Buffaloes was the best medicine the schedule gods could bestow on a team that plays amid the 3-11 devastation.
The Buffaloes scored a run in the first, and struck for 10 hits, but they squandered their opportunities while the Eagles made the best of their seven hits in a 3-1 win on Saturday at The Kleenex Box.
Darrell Rasner (2-1) went 5.1 innings, and Takeshi Yamasaki clubbed a solo homer while Motohiro Shima added a two-out RBI single in a two-run first that lifted the Eagles three games over .500 on the final day of April.
Yamasaki, the 42-year-old who has managed to stay healthy while playing first, cracked his third of the year to get Rakuten even. Ryo Hijirisawa added a one-out double in the seventh to cap the scoring.
MARINES 1, HAWKS 0
Yasuhiko Yabuta escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam to save Bill Murphy’s seven-hitter and Lotte blanked SoftBank at The Q.
Murphy (1-0) went 8.1 innings but two walks and a single in the ninth got him yanked. Yabuta came on and got a foul popup and a strikeout to keep the Hawks off the board and nail down his fourth save.
Yoshifumi Okada’s RBI double in the seventh produced the game’s only run.
FIGHTERS 9, LIONS 6
Atsunori Inaba got Nippon Ham even by capping a five-run fifth with a three-run blast, and Shota Ono provided the game-winning RBI with a solo shot in the sixth as the Fighters fought back to top struggling Seibu at Sapporo Dome.
The Lions, who lost a five-run lead, have dropped four straight for the second time this season.
CENTRAL LEAGUE
GIANTS 8, BAYSTARS 2
Alex Ramirez celebrated tying ever-popular former Giants cleanup man Hideki Matsui for consecutive games batting in the No. 4 hole by smacking a two-run, tiebreaking homer as Yomiuri won at Yokohama to snap a four-game slide.
Ramirez, who moved over as a free agent from Yakult after the ’07 season, began his streak of 415 straight games as the cleanup man on May 5, 2008. In that role, he was been home run king, and won a batting title and two RBI crowns.
TIGERS 6, SWALLOWS 2
Kenji Jojima floated a first-inning, bases-clearing double up into the wind at Koshien Stadium as Hanshin topped Yakult a second straight day.
The Swallows came in with a nine-game winning streak on Friday, but Takahiro Arai homered and Craig Brazell also drove in a run as the Tigers won their first series in five matchups.
DRAGONS 4, CARP 4
Kazuhiro Wada rifled an RBI double off the wall in left to break at 4-4 tie and help Chunichi edge Hiroshima after blowing a 4-0 lead at Nagoya Dome.