June 30th Shimoyanagi v Chen - The mysterious eighth

This was a tight game which didn't really need to be. Tigers batters allowed Chen to tie them up when the fifth innings in response to Wada's lucky hit was an indicator of what could be achieved. Johjima's decision making was not good this game and his decision to walk Morino in the eighth can only be characterised as strange. All in all a disappointing performance by the Tigers. Disappointingly, it seems that Yokoyama has been sent down to the second team after his poor pitching in the ninth. How are pitchers to get top team experience if as soon as they make mistakes they are demoted? No wonder the relief is not performing as it should. Scores

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

Starting lineups

Dragons
1. Araki (Short)
2. Hidenori (Second)
3. Morino (Third)
4. Wada (Left)
5. Blanco (First)
6. Nomoto (Right)
7. N. Donoue (Second)
8. Oyama (Catcher)
9. Chen (Pitcher)

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

Tsuru was replaced by Asai before the game started. Asai and Murton switched postions.

Dragons first started with a strike out then Hidenori hit. Morino's double play ended the innings. Tigers first was similar - Murton managed a two out hit but Arai lined out to end the innings. One could sense that this was going to be a tight game. Dragons second was totally uneventful as the batters fell in order. Tigers second was also uneventful which for a Tigers fan was not welcome. In Dragons third Oyama managed a hit which of course meant that Chen would bunt him to second. Araki was next and he flew out to end the innings. Tigers third saw no runners reach base.

Dragons fourth saw Kuramoto ground out and Morino strike out which brought up Wada. He swung and got enough of the bat on the ball for it fly off to right and land in the stand, just inside the foul post. A streaky solo home run 1-0 Dragons. Blanco then struck out to end the innings. Tigers response was gratifying and immediate. Hirano hit to short and beat the rather ineffective Araki to first. Murton hit to left but forced out Hirano. Arai hit to third and Tigers had runners on first and second. Brazell flew out to centre but Johjima hit nicely over Araki into left and this brought Murton home, 1-1 scores tied, runners on first and third. Asai needed to think about his approach but instead hit his first pitch straight back to Chen who had an easy final out. More care might have led to better things. Nomoto then led Dragons fifth off with a two base hit - a bit surprising but Shimoyanagi was equal to the task. He couldn't prevent Nomoto moving round to third on Donoue's ground out but then struck out Oyama and got Chen to ground out to short and end the innings. Tigers fifth saw Shimoyanagi hit to centre with one out. This was a great opportunity but was wasted as both Toritani and Hirano swung very quickly (Toritani at his second pitch and Hirano at this first). Tigers batters in general were too quick to swing though this could also be applied to Dragons batters as well. Dragons sixth was quiet as Shimoyanagi retired the batters in order. Tigers sixth was poorly handled by them and Dragons errors went unpunished. Firstly, Arai hit to Araki who messed up for his second night in a row. Then he made second on a wild pitch but the final batter Johjima grounded out to third to end the innings. This was a wasted opportunity.

Shimoyanagi returned for Dragons seventh - he had pitched very well and effectively. He wasn't so effective in the seventh though. First was a lead off walk to Wada. Then with two out and Wada on second Johjima decided to deliberately walk Donoue - why? Oyama was next and he walked to load the bases which brought up Chen. It was perhaps fortunate for Tigers that he was going to pitch their seventh. He duly grounded out to end the innings but the handling of the pitching had been puzzling. In Tigers seventh Asai managed a hit and was pinch run for by Yamato. Kanemoto made his pinch hit appearance and was out, like the rest of his colleagues swinging too soon. Yamato then tried to steal second but was thrown out for the final out of the innings. Mayumi then changed pitchers for the Dragons eighth. This was a good decision - Shimoyanagi had pitched extremely well again but there was no need to push him unnecessarily beyond the 90 pitches already thrown. Mayumi's choice of setup was also good, Kubota. However, the Tigers kantoku hadn't reckoned with Johjima. Kubota started by giving up a centre hit to Araki. He was bunted to second by Hidenori and then Johjima made a strange decision. He called for a deliberate walk of Morino. This was strange in itself as with one out the next two batters were Dragons most effective at driving in runners. Morino isn't so good in these tight situations and if he had been the second out there would have been more pressure on Wada and more likelihood of him being out. Johhima of course was angling for a double play but even so it was a very risky strategy especially as Wada doesn't hit into too many of those (only 4 so far). The only conclusion about it was that it was a mistake which put Kubota under unnecessary pressure. So this proved, Kubota's first pitch to Wada was high enough to hit and Wada directed it into right field which brought Araki home 2-1 Dragons, runner on first with Morino being caught off base and out. Blanco then hit a two base to right centre but the runner going for home was tagged out. The Dragons runners had been too ambitious but still managed to come out of it with a valuable one run lead. Chen returned for Tigers eighth and got the first two outs before Ochiai switched to Asao who struck Murton out looking to end the innings. For Dragons ninth Mayumi put Fujihara in for the first out before switching to Watanabe to get the next two outs. For Tigers Asao got Arai to ground out to him and then he was replaced by Iwase. Both Brazell and Johjima grounded out tamely to end the game. Dragons victory,

Not really a satisfactory effort from Tigers batters in support of some fine pitching. Chen is not having a good season but to allow him to dominate the lineup was too much. Furthermore a failure to punish the Dragons mistakes and to turn up the pressure when needed was not good. Johjima needs to abandon these strange deliberate walks he likes - they do not produce the results he wants and put his pitchers under pressure when the goal should be to put the batters under pressure. Tigers batters had not done enough to create chances and noting that the Giants showed how things should be done in their victory against the Carp one can only say that Tigers need to improve their performance.