July 27th Nohmi v Corcoran - Corcoran's first victory

Sometimes you win pitching poorly and Corcoran did this. Tigers batting was more than abysmal - it was totally clueless. Runners on in every innings except the third and the ninth and runners in scoring positions in six of those seven innings and all Tigers were able to generate was one run. Against a relief that is supposedly feeble and in their home stadium in front of a capacity and highly partisan crowd. What else do Tigers need to win? BayStars to throw everything straight at 120 kph in the middle of the zone? If anything shows up the worthless nature of Wada and his crowd it is this game. Not only that Tigers blew a pefect five innings from Nohmi and good work from both their catchers. And this is the management team Sakai wants to bring back. This is TEPCO level of management. Scores

          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E 
BayStars  0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 1 4 8 0
Tigers    0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 9 0

Starting Lineups

BayStars
1. Kinjoh (Left)
2. Yamazaki (Short)
3. Morgan (Centre)
4. Blanco (First)
5. Nakamura (Third)
6. Aranami (Right)
7. Miyazaki (Second)
8. Tsuruoka (Catcher)
9. Corcoran (Pitcher)

Tigers
1. Nishioka (Second)
2. Yamato (Centre)
3. Toritani (Short)
4. Murton (Left)
5. Takahiro Arai (First)
6. Imanari (Right)
7. Saka (Third)
8. Fujii (Catcher)
9. Nohmi (Pitcher)

Nohmi would start superbly striking out all three BayStars batters in a stunning first. Nishioka who should not be playing grounded out but Yamato singled and so did Toritani - runners on first and second. Murton hit into a double play which should not happen for a No. 4. Wada's stubborness in playing Murton at 4 is costing the Tigers runs. The next three BayStars fell in order in the second - they tried to hit but couldn't get anywhere. With one out in Tigers second Imanari singled. Saka swung at his first pitch and flew out to right. Why on earth did he do that? He could have waited for a better chance. Fujii did wait one pitch and singled to right - runners on first and second but the final batter was Nohmi who struck out to end the innings. BayStars lower order was blasted away by Nohmi in the third. No one had even threatened to reach base. Tigers third unfortunately was inept. They should have at least put runners on but they didn't

BayStars fourth was almost a repeat of the first but Kinjoh did manage to ground out rather than strike out. The other two batters struck out. Tigers fourth was a disaster. How a team can manage to waste the gift they were given escapes me. Murton drew a lead off walk. Then Arai singled right - runners on first and second. Next Imanari who walks to load the bases with no outs. Here things go wrong. Saka swung wildly and hit to third. Nakamura threw to home for the out - one out bases loaded. Fujii struck out swinging - inept batting from someone who should have known better. Nohmi had to do it all himself singling to right but this only brought in one run - Tigers should have tried to get another runner home 1-0 Tigers, bases loaded. The situation was thus set up for Nishioka to have his stab at glory but he struck out looking ignominiously.
Tigers have this trait of stopping runs so that the star batters coming up next can drive in the runs but it backfires so frequently that one wonders why they are so stupid as to persist in it. BayStars fifth was quiet though - so far no runners at all. Tigers fifth saw Yamato try a bunt hit and reach first safely. He then stole second. This was as they say a dubious call. Surely Tigers would make something of this enterprise though. They wasted it though. Toritani flew out and Murton took a dead ball - runners on first and second. Arai hit to centre and flew out but Yamato tagged up and took third. A great chance but Imanari screwed up again and flew out to left. Having fought hard for five innings with no run support, Nohmi had nothing left - BayStars used their sixth wisely and effectively. Miyazaki singled left for BayStars first hit of the game and their first base runner. He was pinch run for by Uchimura who took second on Tsuruoka's bunt. Tigers were suddenly in disaray and Ide (pinch hitter) singled right bringing in the run 1-1 scores tied, runner on first. Kinjoh hit to centre putting runners on first and third - suddenly BayStars were unstoppable. Kinjoh stole second which even though Fujii had called well showed up what a poor catcher he is. Kinjoh stealing is the sort of event one doesn't imagine happening in a month of Sundays. However, runners on second and third. Yamazaki struck out swinging but Morgan singled to second where the struggling Nishioka was unable to make the throw - runner home 2-1 BayStars, runners on first and third. Blanco hit to centre - another run home 3-1 BayStars, runners on first and second. Finally Nakamura grounded out to second and Nishioka was able to get the out. Tigers sixth was pitched by Takasaki who got Saka but then gave up a double to Fujii. Nice work and Tigers once again blew it. Asai (pinch hitter) struck out swinging and then Nishioka grounded out to second ending the innings.

Having had evidence that Katoh is not so comfortable over the past few games Wada, of course, continued to use him and he pitched the BayStars seventh. Aranami struck out and Uchimura flew out but then Tsuruoka hit his first pitch to left. Andoh took over this at this point and manged to walk Tamura (pinch hitter). BayStars were certainly making up for the lack of base runners in the first five innings. Andoh stayed cool and got Kinjoh to ground out and end the innings. Kikuchi started Tigers seventh and got Yamato to ground out. Toritani walked and Kaga took over. He struck out Murton - appalling batting from Tigers No. 4. Then Arai flew out to right to end the innings. For BayStars eighth Matsuda was the pitcher. With one out he gave up a single to Morgan who advanced to second on a wild pitch. Blanco walked to set up runners on first and second but then Nakamura who was having a quiet evening grounded out into a double play. Ohhara pitched Tigers eighth and was immediately in trouble. He gave up a double to Shunsuke (pinch hitter). Once again Tigers wasted the chance through inept batting. Ryota (pinch hitter) swung wildly and popped up to second. Then Fujii worked a walk to put runners on first and second. This was a great chance with only one out and a weak BayStars relief but Tigers blew it again. Sekimoto (pinch hitter) popped up to short - very poor batting and then Nishioka hit his first pitch to short to end the innings. Zarate took over for BayStars ninth with Komiyama as catcher. Now Zarate should not be in the top team as he still is not of the level required. He narrowly escaped giving up runs the previous game but this time his inability wouldn't go unpunished. He started by issuing a lead off walk to Aranami. Aranami was bunted to second by Uchimura but then Tsuruoka struck out swinging. Nishimori (pinch hitte) though singled to centre which brought home the run 4-1 BayStars, runner on first. Zarate balked taking Nishimori to second and then walked Kinjoh to set up runners on first and second. At this point Wada decided enough was enough and replaced Zarate with Nishimura. One hopes that Zarate returns to ni-gun where he belongs at the moment. Nishimura got Yamazaki to ground out to first and end the innings. Sosa pitched Tigers ninth and had a surprisingly easy ride retiring the batters in order. The final batter was Murton who capped a dismal display as No. 4 by lining out to first. BayStars victory.

Tigers lost the series and dropped to 4.5 games behind the Giants. It had been a second rate performance where in spite of out hitting the BayStars 9-8 Tigers had only scored one run. BayStars could be happy with their victory as Tigers had wasted chance after chance and batted very ineptly. Once again Wada's incompetent management and poor team preparation had been cruelly exposed. The continued use of Zarate and Katoh; the former being inadequate, the latter needing a rest are mysteries which only the coaches know the answer to. Sad to say our coaches probably don't know the answer to anything. Tigers should win the final game but this series hasn't been a good advert for their championship chances.

I have no objection to your criticizing Corcoran's pitching this game. He got very lucky that Hanshin had nobody capable of coming through in a clutch situation (except Nohmi).

But I still object to your depiction of Fujii Shugo.

Well, we've managed to finally get over the Dragon that was in our way. Hanshin is just 10.5 games ahead of us? And we're 10 games under .500. Wouldn't it be nice to catch a Tiger by the tail?

It's not that the batters weren't capable of doing it but that they didn't. And on the strength of last nights performance your dream does begin to look a bit more like reality.