Pacific League Opens

While watching the Buffs and Lotte game this evening, I finally have some time to comment on the opening series'.

Lotte upsetting Seibu was the lead story in Sunday mornings' sports dailies. There is a big change in Chiba, and the press loves the "charisma kantoku." Seibu's Matsuzaka opened his fifth season in a row, having his record drop to 2 and 3.

Oh, and at the party after the meeting I had on Saturday, I had the chance to talk with a number of co-workers form the Hokkaido branch. And they're all excited about having their own team up there, all stating that they're rooting for the Fighters. And they all said that they're looking forward to watching Shinjo.

And speaking of Shinjo, the day before opening day, after hearing that Kintetsu's Nakamura proclaimed that he was going to hit a home run in each of his at bats, Shinjo declared that he was going to hit a botai (easy out) for each of his at bats. Well, neither lived up to their expectations. Nakamura went 0 for 3, striking out once and walking once. Shinjo went 2 for 3 with a sacrifice bunt. The next day, March 28, Shinjo's 9th inning 3-run home run put Nippon Ham up by 3. But a lead-off error in the bottom of the 9th turned out to be fatal, with Nakamura hitting a sayonara 2 RBI single to left-center to top off a 4 run dramatic finish.

And speaking of dramatic finishes, after our softball team was eliminated from the tournament in the semi-finals, I turned on my radio to catch the Seibu - Lotte game. Lotte was leading 2-0 when I turned it on, and Wada, who hit a home run on opening day, cut that lead in half with a solo shot soon thereafter. Seibu tied the game up in the 7th, and it went into extra innings. Unfortunately (for Lotte), Nagasaki walked the first Lion in the 10th, then threw the ball away on a pick-off play. That put Nakajima, the young man filling Matsui's shoes just fine, in a position to score on Hiroyuki Takagi's single to the right side. A dramatic sayonara victory.

[Lotte just finished shutting out Kintetsu at Osaka Dome on the 29th.]

Daiei took the opening game against Orix as everyone expected. Then jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead in the second game. But after cutting that lead to 2 runs in the 4th inning, Muramatsu took his former team mate Arakaki deep to right with bases loaded for a grand slam gyaku-ten home run. The BlueWave seemed to gain confidence after that and scored at least a run in each of the next four innings. But daiei didn't give up that easilly. Down 10-4 in the 7th inning, Daiei sent 10 batters to the plate, scoring 5 of them to make it a 1-run game. But that wasn't enough to catch Orix who finished the Hawks off 11-9.