Miura's Triumphant Return

Yokohama BayStars ace, Daisuke Miura, has gotten the call back to the top team to face the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in the first of a weekend 3-game series at Yokohama Stadium. After allowing 8 home runs to the Giants in his final pre-season outing, Miura was delegated to the farm for a little more work. So starting two weeks after the season has begun, he's finally ready for the big time. (I really do think that there isn't enough time to get ready as spring training keeps getting shorter and shorter every year.)

Through six innings of work, Miura allowed all four of the hits that the Carp were able to manage on the night, no two hits coming in the same inning. After back to back strike outs of Yoshiyuki Ishihara and pinch hitter Masafumi Suenaga to start off the sixth, Miura gave up his only walk to Akihiro Higashide. Eishin Soyogi followed that with a base hit to left to produce the biggest Hiroshima threat of the night. But Shoichiro Amaya (who had singled up the middle in the fourth inning) grounded out to second to end the threat.

Hiroki Sanada took over on the mound for the BayStars to throw a perfect seventh inning, then Shintaro Ejiri held the Carp hitless for the final two innings (allowing just a 2-out walk in the eighth). The three pitchers threw a combined shutout, the first time the BayStars held a team scoreless since the pre-season.

Without the aid of the long ball, it was a team effort on offense. The BayStars got off to a good start in the first inning, despite Takehiro Ishikawa and Tatsuya Shimozono striking and grounding out respectively to start off the bottom of the first. Seiichi Uchikawa and Shuichi Murata drew back to back walks with two down. Terrmel Sledge made Hiroshima starting pitcher, Giancarlo Alvarado, pay for those walks with a misplayed double to center. It was a high pop up, and shorstop Soyogi was calling for it going back behind the second base bag into shallow center field. Then Soyogi gave up at the last second, center fielder Amaya dove for the ball, but was unable to come up with it. It was ruled a double, but I think Amaya got a glove on the ball. Nonetheless, both runners scored. Jose Castillo then drove in Sledge on a line drive base hit to center, the relay home not in time. The RBI is Castillo's 9th of the year, matching the 9 that Sledge had just reached for the team lead. So a pair of walk followed by a pair of hits scores three in the Yokohama first.

That BayStars then add two more insurance runs in the bottom of the fifth inning as Ichkawa, Shimozono, and Uchikawa hit consecutive singles with one out to score one. (Shimozono's was a bunt base hit toward third while Uchikawa's was a late swing that fell in up the first base line.) Murata follows that up with a sacrifice fly, "plenty deep enough to score the runner" was how my son described Murata's hit, to put the BayStars up 5-0.

The BayStars put a pair of base runners on in the seventh, but came up empty. The 5-0 score held, and the BayStars have won the first game of a three game series for the first time this season. What's more, the two game winning streak is their first as well. Where there's two there's three? Let's hope so.

Oh, and Tasuku Hashimoto finally threw a runner out trying to steal! Shigenobu Shima tried to swipe second on a fork ball by Miura in the second inning. Hashimoto not only handled the fork, but threw a strike to second base to get Shima. This was the 12th attempted steal against Hashimito this season. Despite this, though, Amaya successfully stole second in the fourth inning to make it 1 out of 13. Well, have to start somewhere.

Looking for highlights? Hamasuta Wave has been updated to allow non-Redmond platforms to work this year. This game is available here. The button under the line score shows the final inning. On the left under that is the highlights real. To the right of that is the hero interview with Miura (he starts off with an apology for being late) and kantoku interview with Obana-kantoku. Each clip comes after a short commercial.