Ohtonari Spins 3-Hitter, Offense Destroys Lotte, 14-0

Kenji Ohtonari has had a whirlwind first full season with the SoftBank Hawks after being a spot starter last year. The young left-hander has spun 2 shutouts this season, and this was by far his finest start of the season. Ohtonari held the Chiba Lotte Marines to only 3 hits, walking none, inducing 14 ground ball outs, and striking out four over 117 pitches today at Yahoo Dome.

For rookie Lotte starter Yuki Karakawa, he was not so lucky. The Hawks pounced on Karakawa, and, aided by some leaky defense, SoftBank rolled to an easy victory.

Karakawa got through the first 3 innings alright, giving up an inconsequential single to Hiroki Kokubo in the 2nd inning, but he was quickly erased on a double play. The first error of the game by rookie Shunichi Nemoto also led to another baserunner in Kenta Nakanishi, but Karakawa worked out of it.

Ohtonari was doing well over the first few innings, giving up only singles to Fukuura and Hayakawa. From then on, all Ohtonari gave up was a triple to Saburo in the 4th. Ohtonari retired the last 16 Lotte batters that came to the plate, getting batters out quickly, which led to a relatively low pitch count over 9 innings.

Karakawa, however, imploded in the 4th. Matsunaka led off the inning with a single, then Kokubo clubbed a home run to dead center field to put SoftBank on the board first, 2-0, but the carnage was far from over.

Matsuda followed Kokubo, and doubled to left. Then Yuya Hasegawa and Nakanishi both singled to make SoftBank's lead 3-0. A sacrifice bunt by Takaya put runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 away. Arakane came up, and hit a talior-made double play ball to Nishioka at short, but he booted it, leading to SoftBank's 4th run of the inning. A groundout by Honda ended the scoring for the inning, with SoftBank ahead, 5-0.

Karakawa got through the 5th with no damage, giving up only a double to Kokubo, but in the 6th, Karakawa's outing turned uglier seemingly with every pitch.

The Lotte rookie started the inning by walking Nakanishi, then was the victim of yet another Lotte error, this one by first baseman Jose Ortiz. With runners on 1st and 2nd, Arakane delivered his 2nd sacrifice bunt of the day to put Nakanishi on 3rd and Takaya on 2nd. With the pressure on, Karakawa struck out Honda to put the Hawks chance in trouble.

Olympian Kawasaki put a stop to any thoughts that Lotte would get out of the inning unscathed, though. He laced a single back up the middle to score Nakanishi to extend the Hawks lead to 6-0.

Karakawa was finished for the day, but the book was not closed on him, as he was responsible for Kawasaki at 2nd. Takagi came in to try and stem the tide, but the tide swept him away in 3 batters. First, Matsunaka came up and singled back to the box, which scored Kawasaki. Then, Takagi had a more difficult challenge: retire Hiroki Kokubo. The long-time Hawk had other ideas. In his last at-bat of the day, Kokubo slammed his 2nd home run of the day, a blast to to right field to close the book on Karakawa and drill more nails into the Lotte coffin, 10-0 SoftBank.

The book was then closed on Karakawa. He gave up 8 runs (4 earned) on as many hits, walking 2 and striking out 4 in 5 and 2/3 innings, taking the loss.

Takagi, who was called on to get at least one out, couldn't even do that. Matsuda doubled and knocked Takagi out of the game. Tomohisa Nemoto came in to try his luck, and got Hasegawa to ground out to end the nightmare 6th inning.

The final runs came in the Hawks Lucky 7. Already up 10-0, the Hawks poured it on some more. Like he had the previous inning, Nakanishi got the scoring started, this time with a single. After Takaya and Arakane both were put out by Nemoto at 2nd, it seemed that pitcher Nemoto would get out of the inning. However, the Hawks once again denied the Marines of that one last out. Honda singled up the middle, then pinch-hitter Kaneko walked to load the bases. Tsuji, who replaced Matsunaka after a double-switch, roped a double to center to plate 2 more runs, 12-0 SoftBank. Turn out the lights!

Akashi then took his at-bat, cranking a double himself down the right-field line, which scored 2 more again, 14-0 SoftBank. That was how it ended, mercifully enough for Lotte. Between the Lotte pitching having trouble getting that 3rd out, leaky defense, and Ohtonari's domination, it was a tough day.

Ohtonari got the win for SoftBank, his record improves to 9-7, while Karakawa took the loss, his record drops to 5-3. Hiroki Kokubo hit 2 home runs today, his 16th and 17th of the season.

SoftBank continues their weekend series at Yahoo Dome against the Marines, with DJ Houlton (2-3, 5.02) taking the mound against Lotte ace Yoshihisa Naruse (6-5, 3.22).