Inter league starts

This year's inter league tournament involves 3 game series at one teams grounds and so Tigers travel to Golden Eagles stadium for their first series. What was interesting was the use of Okazaki (who's still around surprisingly) to replace Haraguchi in the second game. We will see if he starts the third game which would be a retrograde step especially as Haraguchi has the better bat.

The first game was a washout for Tigers though. Their batting failed miserably and managed to get only one run. Rakuten in the meantime added runs regularly. Haraguchi missed a throw in the fourth which led to a three run lead for Rakuten. Despite pulling a run back in the sixth Tigers or rather Enokida blew the game in the seventh giving up 5 runs. Akiyama gave up another in the eighth to put Rakuten ahead 9-1 which was the final score. Nohmi was the loosing pitcher and one must ask how long he and Messenger can continue as the core of the Tigers pitching lineup.

Tigers managed to bounce back in the second game of the series. Of interest was Kanoh batting fifth with Haraguchi moving to sixth. A new pitcher Aoyagi started for Tigers and picked up the first win of his career whilst giving up one run. He only pitched 5 innings though. Kanoh proved his worth in the new position hitting a three run home run in the fourth but this is probably the usual Kanoh flash in the pan. Still Tigers were able to score 5 runs. Rakuten fought back in the seventh and scored two runs off Takahashi. This put the score at 5-3 and Kanemoto decided to give Haraguchi a rest. Okazaki took over for the relief pitching and managed to work well with Dollis and then Kyuji. The result would have probably been the same without the change but at least Haraguchi got some rest.