October 9th Nohmi v Miura - The end of an era

This would have been a totally irrelevant game except for one thing - it was Kanemoto's retirement game. This changed the significance - saying goodbye to one of the greats of Japanese baseball at the end of an illustrious career. It had all the right elements and importantly Tigers sent Kanemoto off with a victory over a strange Miura. The latter threw some very good pitches but also threw some complete rubbish especially his pitch to Messenger. Kanemoto started fourth and fielded left and had the honour of taking the catch for the last out of the game. Tigers dominated but it will be a different team without Kanemoto next season. Kataoka stepped down as batting coach (entirely appropriate) and maybe Wada could take the hint as well. Scores

          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R  H E
BayStars  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0  2 1
Tigers    0 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 X 3 11 0

Starting lineups

BayStars
1. Aranami (Centre)
2. Uchimura (Short)
3. Tsutsugoh (Third)
4. Nakamura (First)
5. Ide (Left)
6. Kinjoh (Right)
7. Watanabe (Second)
8. Takajoh (Catcher)
9. Miura (Pitcher)

Tigers
1. Uemoto (Second)
2. Yamato (Centre)
3. Toritani (Short)
4. Kanemoto (Left)
5. Takahiro Arai (First)
6. Ryota Arai (Third)
7. Itoh (Right)
8. Fujii (Catcher)
9. Nohmi (Pitcher)

Takahiro Arai was able to make it onto the field to play in his friends final game but Kyuji Fujikawa wasn't recovered enough to pitch. He was still in the dugout though. The game started with Nohmi's attempt to seize the Central League strike out record. In the first innings he struck out Aranami and Tsutsugoh giving him 172 strikeouts for the season and tying him with Sugiuchi of the Giants for first place. For some reason he only pitched one innings and one wonders why he didn't pitch a second. He would have probably taken sole lead. Uemoto started by flying out but then Yamato bounced one off Miura for a single. Toritani hit left and set up runners on first and second. Kanemoto hit a grounder to first which moved the runners round to second and third. On this night it didn't matter what he did though of course everyone hoped for a dream finish with maybe a final home run. Kanemoto himself had expressed a wish to go out with a bang against Miura, the pitcher who he has hit most home runs off. The final batter was Takahiro Arai who skiied his first pitch to the catcher and the innings was scoreless. Messenger then took over the pitching duties for BayStars second after the farce of the first. He was dominant and pitching to his favourite catcher was rarely troubled. The three batters went down rapidly in order. Probably still affected by the atmosphere, Miura gave up a one out single to Itoh. Then Fujii hit right to set up runners on first and second. Next was Messenger and no one expected much from him but he turned a rather high pitch to left over Ide who was standing close in and put it in the corner. Itoh was home, of course but Fujii was able to exceed his design speed and reach home as well 2-0 Tigers, runner on second. Fujii paid for it and was rather slow behind the plate for the rest of the game. Uemoto struck out swinging and then Yamato flew out. Messenger controlled the BayStars third retiring Watanabe and Takahjoh before returning Miura's complement by giving up a single to the BayStars pitcher. Aranami then struck out to end the innings. Tigers third was quiet and this time Kanemoto struck out swinging but this was OK - as I said he could do anything.

BayStars fourth was also quiet - Messenger was looking very assured though we do have to remember that BayStars weren't trying that hard. They weren't going to spoil Kanemoto's farewell by doing anything as crass as scoring and the first out of the innings was Uchimura who flew out to Kanemoto. Of course, every catch he took no matter how straightforward was cheered to the rafters. Itoh walked with one out in Tigers fourth and then Fujii skied his first pitch to third. This left Messenger but there was no way he was going to be allowed to hit again and Miura struck him out looking to end the innings. BayStars still couldn't get runners on base - their fifth was quiet and whilst they weren't looking to win I am sure they wanted to compete more and get the runners on. They just couldn't. Tigers fifth was also quiet though Uemoto did fall to a fine catch in the corner by Ide. BayStars sixth started with Takajoh and Miura grounding out to Toritani then Aranami singled to second. Uemoto dived and stopped the ball but could only do that and the runner was safe. Aranami tried to steal second but Fujii was ready and the throw was good. Aranami was tagged out. Tigers sixth was led off by Kanemoto - he singled to centre. With Takahiro Arai at the plate Kanemoto then went for second. The throw was too high and Uchimura had to jump to avoid Kanemoto's slide. Kanemoto was safe - he enjoyed that. Takahiro Arai then singled nicely to centre and Kanemoto set off for home. The throw from Aranami was inch perfect and Takajoh was nicely positioned over the centre of the plate. As Kanemoto slid in he was tagged out. Takahiro Arai meanwhile reached second. Ryota Arai was next and singled right centre getting enough depth on the shot for Takahiro Arai to make home comfortably 3-0 Tigers, runner on first. Itoh grounded out to short which took Ryota Arai to second but Fujii skied another one to the catcher - this one stayed up an awful long time and Takajoh had plenty of time to position himself.

BayStars would get no more base runners from this point on. Their seventh saw the batters fail to get on base. Messenger wasn't troubled at all. With two out in Tigers seventh Yamato hit to Watanabe who messed up an easy take completely and then fumbled the throw allowing the runner to get on first. Toritani singled to centre to set up runners on first and third. Next was Kanemoto and he got hold of a looser pitch hitting along the first baseline. Sadly, the dream was not to be and the ball drifted foul. Then Kanemoto swung too soon and popped up to Takajoh to end the innings. Ide led off BayStars eighth hitting to left where Kanemoto took the catch. Then Kinjoh did the same and once again Kanemoto took the catch really enjoying this phase of the game. Finally, Watanabe grounded out to end the innings. Sekimoto (replacement third, Ryota Arai having moved over to first to take over from his brother). Ryota Arai flew out to the catcher and then Itoh hit a grounder to short forcing out Ryota Arai but making first safely on a rather slow response by Uchimura. Fujii singled to centre but Messenger was the final out ending the innings by grounding out to third. If he had been fit Kyuji would have pitched BayStars ninth but instead the excellent Messenger stayed on the mound. Shimozono (pinch hitter) struck out swinging and then Gotoh (pinch hitter) grounded out to short. Ato hitori and this proved to be Aranami who hit high to left where Kanemoto took the catch to end the game and his career in baseball. Tigers victory.

The victory was nice and of course in the normal run of things this would have meant a hero interview for Messenger. But this game was all about one man and so Kanemoto took centre stage. He accepted tributes from both teams, Kiyohara and from his daughter before making a speech and managing not to tear up. The obligatory toss up and then a walk around Koshien to acknowledge and say goodbye to the fans. It was the end of an era and with the possible departure of Kyuji to MLB means that Tigers will be left with only two players from the 2003 Hoshino team, Hiyama and Andoh. A more detailed analysis of Kanemoto's career at Tigers will follow in due course but he did manage to go out relatively well and didn't linger too long.