May 15th Fossum v Iwakuma - The first inter-league win

Tigers showed considerably more application this game than they had against Fighters. Hirano who has been hitting well recently was the star of the show going 3-4 with two two base hits. Fossum also pitched supremely well, matcning Iwakuma over six innings. It seems his last meltdown was an abberration. Brazell hit his 13th home run but whilst these are recent the last four have all been solos. He does need to hit with runners on as well and he has been having difficulty in that regard. We also have a new acronym for our relief pitchers NEW (Nishimura, Egusa, Watanabe). Creating these things keeps the journalists busy but at least there are changes afoot. Scores

               1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R  H E
Golden Eagles  1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2  8 0
Tigers         1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 X 3 10 1

Starting lineups

Golden Eagles
1. Hijirisawa (Centre)
2. Takasu (Second)
3. Tsuchiya (Right)
4. N. Nakamura (Third)
5. Phillips (Left)
6. Yamasaki (First)
7. Shima (Catcher)
8. N. Watanabe (Short)
9. Iwakuma (Pitcher)

Tigers
1. Murton (Centre)
2. Hirano (Second)
3. Toritani (Short)
4. Arai (Third)
5. Johjima (Catcher)
6. Brazell (First)
7. Sakurai (Right)
8. S. Fujikawa (Left)
9. Fossum (Pitcher)

Against a very good pitcher how would Tigers fare? Golden Eagles first was not auspicious but didn't actually provide a model for the whole game. This makes a change from the previous two games where the general ineptness manifested in the first innings continued throughout the match. Hijirisawa started by hitting to centre. Takasu followed with a nice bunt - so far standard Japanese baseball. Tsuchiya lined out but then Nakamura hit to centre to bring home the runner 1-0 Golden Eagles, runner on first. Phillips grounded out to end the innings but the lead was there. Tigers though managed to eliminate this lead right away through Hirano. With Murton out he banged a nice two base hit to right. Toritani struck out but Arai hit to centre. Hirano motored home 1-1 scores tied runner on first. Johjima hit to left and some classic fielding confusion allowed the runners to reach second and third. Here it really needed Brazell to hit but he grounded out to first to end the innings. Fossum's second innings was much better. He got the first two outs but then gave up a hit to Watanabe. Next though was Iwakuma who unlike Masui was not allowed to hit and flew out to end the innings. Tigers second saw Iwakuma at his best - retiring the batters in order. Takasu hit in Golden Eagles third and with one out this could have been useful. Fossum though struck out Tsuchiya and Nakamura to end the innings - very fine pitching. Murton led off Tigers third with a hit but received no support and stayed on first.

Once again a runner reached base in Rakuten's fourth though this was the result of a walk. Shima was on first. He then tried to steal second which was a folorn hope to say the least and was thrown out. Unfortunately, for Tigers Iwakuma's fourth was magnificent, all batters striking out swinging. Watanabe led off Golden Eagles fifth with a hit but fell next batter to a double play. Hijirisawa walked but a ground out made sure he didn't advance. Shunsuke Fujikawa led off Tigers fifth with a hit. Fossum bunted him to second but Murton failed to do anything. This brought Hirano to the plate and he hit to third, Tigers had runners on first and third. Next was Toritani who hit to left bringing home the runner 2-1 Tigers, runners on first and third. Arai struck out to end the innings though. Nakamura hit a two base in Golden Eagle's sixth with one out but Rakuten failed to make anything of this chance. The story is that recently Fossum bought his son the Japanese baseball computer game and was horrified to find out how low his rating was. He resolved to do better and had done so over these six innings. Johjima led off Tigers sixth with a walk and two outs later Shunsuke Fujikawa hit to set up runners on first and third. Hiyama (pinch hitter) grounded out and the innings was over.

Watanabe replaced Fossum for Golden Eagles seventh and was very smooth cruising through his three batters and striking out two. Tigers seventh was a wasted opportunity. Murton struck out looking and then Hirano had his second two base hit of the night. A very nice situation to exploit. It got even nicer when Arai walked with two outs. However, Johjima failed to bring home the runners striking out looking. This was very good pitching by Iwakuma. Golden Eagles eighth was pitched by Nishimura - he managed to get into trouble with the help of an error from Yamato (replacement second). He should have got Takasu but the Rakuten second was able to make first. With two outs Mayumi switched to Kyuji Fujikawa. Nakamura was deliberately walked and this brought up Kusano (pinch hitter) who flew out. Brazell slammed hiis 13th home run of the season ( a solo to right) as lead off in Tigers eighth 3-1 Tigers. The next three batters did nothing but with one out we saw Shunsuke Fujikawa followed by Kyuji Fujikawa as the second and third outs. Fujikawa returned for Golden Eagles ninth and gave up a lead off hit to Yamasaki. Two outs followed then Kawaguchi (pinch hitter) walked - runners on first and second. Hijirisawa hit a double to bring a runner home 3-2 Tigers, runners on second and third Uchimura was next and he grounded out to Toritani to end the game. Tigers victory.

Tigers had had to work hard against a good pitcher but had shown better application than against Nippon Ham. Really, they should have played this way earlier against the poor Fighters and the second comment to my post for 13th May (from Guest) sums their performance up. Fossum took the win and Kyuji his 10th save though he did pick up his first earned run as well. It's a victory - we'll take it.