September 12th-14th - A series won

Probably one of the most bizarre series played by Tigers this season showing the full range of Wada's stupidity and inability to manage a game but with Tigers still walking away with a rubber victory. It all started with Fujinami whom Wada decided to pair with Tsuruoka for a change. More appropriately Carp went with Fukui a struggling pitcher who melted down spectacularly in the fourth. Carp were holding a one run lead but Fukui went to pieces and gave up six runs in all. Amazingly he stayed in the game. There was a rather stupid incident. Murton got hit by a pitch in the fourth so Fujinami plunked Kikuchi - do we really need this pathetic childishness? We then saw handbags at dawn and really it was quite pointless. Tigers added another couple of runs to win 8-2. The really stupid things was that Fujinami pitched all nine innings - 137 pitches in all. With a seven run lead there was absolutely no need for him to pitch the complete game. It was just complete Wada idiocy.
Having been lucky with Fujinami and Tsuruoka, Wada went for complete stupidity in the second game of the series and pitched Iwasada to Tsuruoka as well. To say that this pairing was out of their depth is an understatement. Carp scored four in the first innings and from then on never looked like losing. Iwasada only lasted one innings before being replaced by Saiuchi who held the line for three innings. However, when Wada switched to Kaneda things really started to go to pieces. Tsuruoka couldn't cope and by the time he was replaced Carp had scored 11 runs. Wada though had to leave Tsutsui in (who had pitched a terrible seventh) for Carp's eighth as a punishment and even Umeno couldn't do anything with the pitcher who gave up another six runs. Trust Wada to screw up badly. Finally, Carp ran out 17-5 winners - the first time Tigers had given up 17 runs since 1950. It's all down to Wada and if this doesn't finish him I don't know what will.
Having screwed up spectacularly in the previous game Wada was persuaded to ignore Tsuruoka and go with Messenger/Umeno. At last sense prevailed. Messenger pitched seven excellent innings. Fukuhara took over in relief and Oh closed the game off. Carp never got on the board and even though Messenger did throw a trifle too many pitches it was a nice comeback performance with great work by a competent catcher. No more replacement of Umeno with Tsuruoka please. The runs came from the bats of Murton and surprisingly two of the passengers, Nishioka and Fukudome. Uemoto who is hot added the other 5-0 Tigers. Still time to get rid of Wada though.