May 29th Enokida v Tomura - More depressing news

Tigers acted quickly and sent Kubo down to ni-gun after his failure in the previous game. At the moment he will be replaced by Fukuhara though speculation is mounting that Boyer will take over the closer role. Fukudome is out of action for three months after an operation to clean out his left knee. We saw Tigers batting fail miserably this game against a poor pitcher who issued 7 walks and one dead ball. This kind of profligacy is rare and should be taken advantage of. Instead Tigers batting flopped around feebly. Scores

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

Starting Lineups

Golden Eagles
1. Matsui (Short)
2. Fujita (Second)
3. Hijirisawa (Centre)
4. Jones (First)
5. McGehee (Third)
6. Nakashima (Left)
7. Shima (Catcher)
8. Teppei (Right)
9. Tomura (Pitcher)

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

Once again Tigers wasted an tight performance from Enokida. The shame was they faced a poor performance from Tomura and did nothing to take advantage of it. In six innings they had eleven base runners and scored nothing. Things improved for Rakuten after the sixth but Tigers still wasted their hits. Against such weak pitching one shouldn't be failing so badly. Enokida was paired with Fujii and did well combined with this catcher which makes one wonder why he was paired with Hidaka. Initially I thought Hidaka would prove to be superior to Fujii but the former flattered to deceive. This doesn't make
Fujii a good catcher - he is still mediocre but it does show that there are catchers weaker than him and that Tigers are intent on hiring them all. Golden Eagles started with a quiet innings - three batters and three out. Tigers started with one of their many walks - Nishioka getting on base to lead off the innings. The usual stupid bunt from Yamato was next taking Nishioka to second. Then Toritani walked to set up runners on first and second. Murton hit deep to right where he flew out - not a wise shot selection but Nishioka did touch up and take third. Then Arai walked to load the bases. Now Tigers had a great chance but Ryota blew it grounding out to third. This should have been better handled by Tigers batters and they should have made at least two runs from the situation. Rakuten's second started with Jones picking up a lead off walk. He stayed on first though as the next three batters failed to do anything. Tigers second saw Fujii pick up a walk with one out. A pointless bunt followed - yes it is Enokida but with one out the chances of a score resulting from a bunt are even more infinitesimal. Fujii on second and Nishioka flew out to end the innings. With two out in Rakuten's third Matsui doubled to left. Fujita's line drive was straight into the glove of Nishioka to end that innings. Tigers third saw a more settled Tomura - he retired the batters in order with Yamato also lining out to second.

Jones walked again in Rakuten's fourth with one out. However, McGehee hit into a double play and ended the innings quite completely. Arai led off Tigers fourth and picked up a painful dead ball but it put a lead off runner on. Ryota managed to ground out to second forcing his brother out but reaching first safely. Then Shibata walked. Next Fujii walked as well to load the bases with only one out. Enokida grounded out and the innings was over. Two outs and Nishioka to follow. He grounded out to second and that chance was missed - two bases loaded situations wasted. Teppei hit a line drive to centre in Rakuten's fifth with two out - runner on first. Tomura was next and struck out looking to end the innings. In Tigers fifth Yamato made a mess of his swing and grounded out to Shima of all people. Toritani walked again to put a runner on first. Murton drove into right - at last hits and runners on. Arai hit left to load the bases - Toritani could have tried for home here and should have but was held up. Ryota was next and... yes, he hit into a double play to end the innings. Well it certainly wasn't Tigers night but one couldn't help feeling that they were throwing chances down the drain. Rakuten's sixth showed how it should be done. Two outs went down then Hijirisawa singled to centre. Jones took a dead ball to put runners on first and second. Then McGehee hit to left and Hijirisawa raced home to score 1-0 Golden Eagles, runners on first and second. Nakashima flew out and ended the innings. Rakuten's clean up had done it's job. Shibata led off Tigers sixth with a single to centre. Fujii went to bunt and failed with two attempts - Wada still wants Fujii to bunt which is stunning. Presumably he would still have Enokida batting next and the sheer stupidity of having a batter on form bunt and a non batter follow makes you wonder. Anyway because he failed Fujii could actually try to hit and did well fighting Tomura all the way. Wada was still obsessed with getting Shibata to second though and signaled the steal. Golden Eagles were ready for it and Shibata was tagged out. Then Fujii left his ninth pitch which was judged a strike and he was also out. Enokida struck out swinging to end the innings. One still wonders what Wada would have done if Fujii had succeeded in bunting.

Rakuten's seventh started with Shima singling to lead off the innings. Teppei grounded out to Enokida and then so did Takasu (pinch hitter) who also hit into the innings ending double play. Tomura had been pinch hit for and so Hoshino went to the relief - the weakest relief in Japan. Aoyama pitched Tigers seventh and both Nishioka and Yamato were dismal. Then Aoyama landed a pitch on Toritani's foot but the umpire didn't see or ignored it. Both he and Wada protested but the umpire was firm and Toritani struck out the next pitch. Rakuten's eighth saw a two out single from Hijirisawa. Enokida was still able to retire the next batter though, Jones who struck out swinging. Koyama pitched Tigers eighth and immediately gave up a single to Murton. Arai hit into a double play though but Ryota doubled to centre. This brought a change of pitcher with Katayama taking over. He got Asai (pinch hitter and replacement right) to fly out into the glove of right to end the innings. Tigers chances were running out. Fukuhara took over for Golden Eagles ninth and ran into trouble. With one out Moriyama (replacment left) singled to lead off the innings. Then Moriyama stole second - Fujii's useless arm once again proving a liability. Shima singled right to bring in the runner 2-0 Golden Eagles, runner on first. It was the killer blow as the way Tigers had been playing they would not overturn a two run lead and in fact a one run lead was beyond them. Fukuhara was replaced by Katoh before he could do more damage and Katoh induced Teppei to hit into a double play to end the innings. Rasner pitched Tigers ninth and gave up a lead off single to Fujii. Imanari (pinch hitter) grounded out forcing out the rotund one and then Nishioka flew out. Hiyama pinch hit for Yamato but could only fly out to centre to end the game. Golden Eagles victory.

Tigers had wasted their chances - no doubt about it. They needed to bat better against poor pitching but failed again and again. Some might say that Enokida was unlucky but one can't really agree with that. He was tight but he needed to be tighter and not to give up any runs. It was a quality start but Enokida should raise his game so that he doesn't have wobbly innings like the sixth. It was just one slack innings but it was enough and this time it wasn't through an error but just slack pitching in one innings. One does feel that Tigers still lack that mental hardness that distinguishes the real winners and this game demonstrated that. Wada is not the manager to instill that and one must say that Golden Eagles demonstrated more mental hardness than Tigers in this series. Tigers can show toughness but need to do it more often.