Inter-league: Dragons vs Hawks @YahooAucDome, May 31st - June 2nd; Hawks get the swoop on Dragons

The start of inter-league play! One of the more interesting caveats of the season to break up the monotony of playing the same 5 times over and over again! The Pacific League has been the better between the two leagues of late and the inter-league competition would be another proving ground to see how teams on either side are fairing.

The Softbank Hawks in Fukuoka would be the first challenge for the 2^nd placed Dragons. The Hawks are of course the reining Japan Series and Pacific League Champs and after a rocky start to the season, sit perched high on the table with no signs of slowing down.

In Game 1 Shinnosuke Ogasawara was in the limelight for the lead up as the first draft rookie had been hyped up for his first start on his pro debut against the Hawks. Ogasawara would make a minor record on his appearance becoming the first high school rookie to debut on the opening day of inter-league play. A very specific record, but a nice one to have nonetheless. Rick Van den Hurk would be the starter for the Hawks and the lanky starter would prove to be a tough challenge to overcome.

Ogasawara pitched with great poise, control and balance in the opening 2 innings as his change-up wreaked havoc on the Softbank line-up.  He didn’t wait long for his first career strike-out as he took care of Makihara in quick time. After seeing Imamiya ground out, Ogasawara then struck-out Hawks star, Yuki Yanagita to end the inning. A very promising start.

The Dragons opened the score first in the 3^rd inning through Ricardo Nanita as he belted his 3^rd homerun of the season making it 0-1.

The Hawks would return fire in the bottom of the 3^rd through Imamiya who got the first hit against Ogasawara on the evening and the first RBI as he split the centre, 1-1. It was however to be former Hawk, Kyouhei Kamezawa that would strike back in the top of the 4^th to give the lead to Chunichi once more with a sacrifice fly, 2-1. Ogasawara would keep the Hawks out of the game as he pitched a total of 5 innings for 1 earned run, 4 strikeouts and 7 walks. Hiroto Fuku took over for one inning with Daisuke Sobue taking the other to keep a hold of the Hawks attack and give Ogasawara the best chance possible to get his first win on his pro debut.  In the 8^th inning, Fukutani was given the chance to keep the good work going but after taking two outs he gave up consecutive hits to Uchikawa and Hasegawa.  Matsuda then evened up the scores with a a single while Nakamura rifled in a 3 RBI double to stretch the winning score to 5-2. Fukutani had absolutely blown it. With only one out to get he let it slip away. Possible mentally unprepared for such a battering, the Chunichi counter-attack was rendered useless by Dennis Sarfate who ripped through Nomoto, Ohshima and Kamezawa to end the game, claim the save and most importantly the win.

 One can only feel frustrated for Ogasawara who had a debut win in his sights. It all came down to Fukutani though and the poor lad was devastated in the post-game barely being able to look at his team-mates. Needless to say, Fukutani was sent down to the 2-gun after his performance. Tajima looks set to be the closer for the time being.

Ogasawara however fulfilled and exceeded my expectations. His first few innings were absolute dynamite. He looks to have gotten a bit bigger since being drafted and his 140km+ straight balls and his change-up looked really good. He seems to have a decent curve ball on him as well which he didn’t quite get working on the night. The weapons seem to be there he just needs to put them to good use. My benchmark for him in the game was to remain at 1 earned run for 5 innings and he did that with gusto. I’m very proud of the young man.  I hope we get to see more of him this season.

Game 2 of interleague play would see Shunta Wakamatsu take to the mound to try and reverse his bad luck of late, losing his last 4 games on the trot. Tsuyoshi Wada would be his opposite number on the mound with the veteran Hawks pitcher only losing 1 game and winning 6.

Donoue started things of brightly in the second as he hit Viciedo home to open the scoring in the 2^nd. Hirata would then chip in with some of the good stuff at the right time as in the 3^rd inning the Chunichi captain cracked three run homer into the stands to make it 0-4.

Viciedo would end the scoring in the 5^th inning with an RBI single to send Ohshima home. Wakamatsu pitched out the game very well as the Hawks struggled against his wizardry. Wakamatsu claimed 8Ks in 8 innings giving up 2 walks and only 3 hits. A tremendous return to form. This writer however is a tad pessimistic as he things the Pacific League boys just haven’t had the time to figure him out like the Central League batters have. Hirata and Viciedo both had two hits a piece today and figured prominently in the reckoning. Good win for the Dragons to bounce back from the previous evenings unfortunate loss.

Game 3 against the Hawks would bring with it a bit of nostalgia for the Dragons fans as former starter Kenichi Nakata started for the Hawks. The Kyushu-born pitcher had some good years with the Dragons but was still looking for his first win of the season. Raul Valdes would take the ball to start the Dragons pitching.

These kind of match ups interest me. Do former players, particularly pitchers, have an inside knowledge that helps them against their old team mates? I can only think there has to be something to that line of thinking.

Anyway, it was to be the reverse of my thinking to start off as former teammates Nakata and Fujii did battle in the 1^st inning only for the latter to come out the winner as he whacked a solo homer into the stands to start things off for the Dragons, 0-1.

The Hawks would reply immediately however as with only one out taken, Valdes loaded up the bases. Hasegawa would take the opportunity to but the Hawks into the lead with a 2 RBI single followed by Matsuda’s sac-fly to make the scores 3-1. Nanita’s second solo homer of the series in the fourth but the Dragons back in reaching distance.

But the Hawks would taketh away through Imamiya’s solo homer in the 4^th to make it 4-2 and restore the two point gap.

Hiroto Fuku was brought in to replace Valdes but the youngster couldn’t stem the tide; he didn’t get much help from his teammates either. Honda looked to be on his way to grounding out but a poor pick up from Kamezawa got the veteran home as well as scoring Tsuruoka. Uchikawa would then rub salt into the wounds with an RBI single to blow the score out to 6-2.

The Dragons failed to rally and only mustered 3 hits from their 9 innings, two of which were homeruns. So concluded another poor showing from the batters that were shown up by their former pitching staff.

A 1-2 loss over the series was a result I probably would have taken at the beginning of the series but if not for Fukutani’s head explosion in the first game, we might have been celebrating a series win. Wasn’t to be and now we’ll have to redeem ourselves against Rakuten in Nagoya. 

On the Farm: Chunichi Dragons v Softbank Hawks (April 19th & 20th)

Keep  movin' movin' movin', though Hawks be disapprovin' keep those runners movin', home side! Don't try to understand em' just mash, crash and slam 'em, soon we'll be smilin' side by side. Our pitchers are frustratin' those Ks will be waiting, if we don't get that control down right. HOME SIDE!

Ahem, yes, the Western theme continues as we continue to follow the Dragons farm team and their adventures in the Western League. Things have been going remarkably well for the team with the losses few and far between. A lot of the good performers have so far gone up to the first team and done well, most noticeably Tetsuya Tani has carried on his superb form.

Michihiro Ogaswara's team headed down to the Hawks Baseball Park Chikugo where the Softbank team normally plays it's 2-gun and 3-gun games. We had another incidence where a 3-game series was turned into a 2-game series because of rain on the 21st. This also hampered recovery efforts in Kumamoto so a called off game was really the least of the worries.

2 games and another two wins to follow. Some good batting on the 19th and some good pitching on the 20th ensured a series win once more for our talented 2-gun players.

Game 1 of the series would see a return to the mound for Yudai Kawai while Yosuke Shimabukuro took up duties for the Hawks. Yudai had a typical blow out after a few innings, but it wasn't to be too detrimental to the team's overall success. The Dragons opened the scoring in the 1st with Hirata hitting home Kondo and the lead was extended to 0-4 in the 4th. One run given up in the 4th and then 4 runs given away in the 5th made it a 5-4 scoreline in favour of the Hawks. With things scoreless until the 9th, Ishikawa scored 2 runners to put the Dragons ahead and secure the win.

Pitching

Kaneko with the save.

Yudai Kawai as mentioned did reasonably well but 4 conceded runs in his 5th inning meant that he was yoinked from the mound fairly early on. Yudai did however take 5 strikeouts but threw 2 walks and allowed 7 hits off his 4 2/3 innings. 93 balls in his spell meant that he probably is lacking a bit of stamina. Yuu Sato would take 1 2/3 innings to strike out and walk two out of his 7 batters faced, helping stem the tide of runs. Ryuya Ogawa, who was in the opening day squad for the big leagues, took 1/3 of an inning and took 4 balls to strikeout his only batter. Achira would walk away as the winning pitcher as he threw down 1 1/3 innings giving up a hit and walk but taking a strikeout to stay scoreless. Takeshi Kaneko took the last inning and got the save taking two strikeouts despite giving up two hits.

Kondo showing the good
stuff

Batting

Young Kondo would be in the midst of all the good things about the batting today as he put in a superb 4 at-bats. The youngster notched 2 hits, a walk and a sacrifice hit. A great contribution. Ryosuke Hirata continued his rehabilitation as he hit 2 including an RBA to go with a walk in his 4 plate appearances. Infielder, Abe started to show signs of settling in as he scored twice and hit two RBIs to go with a walk in a very good appearance with the bat. Ishikawa would be another to carve up the Hawks pitching as he made a telling contribution with 3 hits including 2 RBIs and a walk in his 4 at-bats. Special mention too goes to Ryuichiro Akada who made his comeback as a pinch-hitter after being sidelined with a broken thumb. The catcher with an American grandfather hit two from two to end a good days work. There were plenty of good contributions with the bat, maybe too many to list.

A good performance from the batters and relievers saved the game after some shoddy pitching from Yudai early on. A 5-8 win were the spoils. Credit goes to Abe and Mizowaki, particularly the former, for their fantastic displays in the field.

Here's some highlights from the 9th inning:

Game 2 would prove to be a much closer affair as Chunichi managed to hold on to a 0-2 lead that was achieved in the second inning to close out what would end up being a series sweep. Shinji Iwata would be the man on the mound for the Dragons as a recovering former Major Leaguer, Daisuke Matuzaka would be the Hawks starter for the day. Takuma Kato, and Mizowaki would start things for the Dragons in the second inning to get on base and it was successive RBIs from Watanabe and Kamezawa that ultimately sealed the win.

Iwata with his 1st win

Pitching

Iwata defied his critics today as he pitched out 6 1/3 innings to out-pitch his opposite number. Iwata gave up only 4 hits and a walk as he claimed 6 strikeouts. Ryuya Ogawa had an easy task in his one inning as he gave up one hit against 4 batters. Achira took 2/3 of an inning and took 2 strikeouts against his two batters to continue to stifle the Hawks batting. Takeshi Kaneko finished things up with the save as he conceded one hit but struck out two to finish the game.

It was a really good start from Iwata that got things going. If he can keep his up who knows what might be around the corner, but he still has a lot to prove.

Batting

Tamura made his first full
appearance for the 2nds.

Veterans Hirata and Tamura would be the only one to walk away without a hit as the lineup all
had at least one to their name. Tamura made his full debut since his move from the Baystars and only managed to get on base once through a walk. Kamezawa would have the best performance of the game with an RBI, two walks and 3 stolen bases. Not bad! Nomoto would be the only other to walk away with more than a single approach to base as he got a hit and a walk for his troubles.

Against the likes of Daisuke Matsuzaka and Edison Barrios, it is no real surprise it was a low-scoring game but a fantastic performance from Kamezawa with the bat a and a solid performance form Iwata with the ball ensured an unspectacular but well worked win.

Here's some of Kamezawa's highlights from the game:

Two wins in two games to take away from Fukuoka with plenty of positives. 

Lastly, if you have a Pac-TV account, you can watch the Softbank 2-gun games which means you can watch the Dragons team play live when they go up against the Hawks at home.