Nippon Ham - Magic 1 with 1 Left

I'm interested in the Fighters' game, for obvious reasons. I might not stay up all night like I did for the Yagi-Saitoh match up yesterday, but we'll see.

It's funny, because the Fighters were in a must-win situation for most of the month, and also, last night Softbank had Kazumi Saitoh pitching, and the Lions had Daisuke Matsuzaka pitching, and I can't believe both of them ended up losing.

(Of course, I was at the Mariners game last night, and they were 1-15 against the A's this year, and they actually managed to win, so I should have realized that it was reverse-fortune night.)

Looks like the Fighters-Hawks pitching match up will be Masaru Takeda against Tsuyoshi Wada, and Lions-Marines will be Fumiya Nishiguchi against Shunsuke Watanabe, so it might be another evening of "anything can happen."

The day couldn't have gone better for Nippon Ham. Both Saitoh and Matsuzaka got hammered. Both SoftBank's and Seibu's best shot at winning a game went by the wayside.

Fighter fans, this is one to save [41MB MP3].

The scoring:

The Hawks scored first with a 1-out single by Ohmura in the top of the third inning. He stole second, then came home on Tsuji's single to left. Hawks up 1-0.

After the first 10 Fighters went down in order to Wada, Tanaka Keisuke hit a home run to right to tie the game. Seguignol hit a solo home run to left-center to take the lead. Fighters up 2-1.

In the bottom of the 7th, after Wada retired the first two batters on three pitches, Tsuruoka singled to center, then Macias doubled him in with a line drive up the left field line. With Iiyama pinch running on second, Kaneko then drove him in with a double to left. Fighters up 4-1.

That was the final.

As of this writing, the Seibu-Lotte game is still going on. But it doesn't matter any more. The Fighters took the first place seed.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

Actually, it does vaguely matter. If Alex Cabrera hits a home run, Ogasawara won't have sole possession of the PL HR title anymore.

But other than that, yeah, it doesn't matter!

Thanks for the broadcast, Westbay - I stayed up listening to the whole thing because I'm dumb. I'm going to be so tired at work today.

(Oh, as far as the dolphins you were wondering about - it's because of some ad for the Ogasawara islands, I think, which is used at the start of his player cheer song - "Ogasawara-mura ni wa umi ga aru, Ogasawara-mura ni wa iruka ga iru, ..." Someone even gave me a blue inflatable dolphin at a Fighters game I was at a few weeks ago, though they didn't explain why at the time, just said to use it to cheer for Ogasawara.

The box score said Shinjo was wearing #63 today, but I still can't figure out what was up with that.

We will be the champions!

Ganbare Fighters!

Congrats Fighters, that 1 game advantage in the 2nd round of the playoffs is going to be huge. It's a huge mountain to climb for either the Lions or the Hawks that make it out of the 1st round.

Shinjo went back to his original NPB number, #63, that he wore when he was a rookie. Going back to his roots. It's the first time that a player's number was changed during the season in NPB history. Funny guy, with a good heart.