'Stars Break 27 Inning Scoreless Streak

The Yokohama BayStars took a 27 inning scoreless streak into the June 1 inter-league game at Seibu Dome, and ended it in the first on an Uchikawa timely. It's been a long time coming.

The BayStars' inability to score started back on May 27th. Yokohama scored 1 in the second inning against Orix, and despite pounding out 12 hits in the game, lost it 4-1. That was 7 innings of zeros on the board.

Yokohama then crossed the bay over to Chiba Marine Stadium where their pitching performed better than their batting. Nine innings of zeroes on just 5 hits saw a 5-0 loss to the Marines on the 29th. Then there was the marathon 0-0 game where Yamaguchi surrendered a solo sayonara home run to Satozaki in the 11th inning for a 1-0 loss on the 30th. Ouch. There just seems to be an atmosphere of ineptitude hanging over Yokohama when runners get on.

Well, something had to give. And it looks like it was the Lions. Seibu started Ishii Kazuhisa against Shimizu, and the BayStars wasted no time getting to him. Ishikawa Takehiro led off the game with an infield single to second. After being sacrificed to second, Uchikawa Seiichi drove Ishii in with a base hit to left. Murata Shuichi's double to the right-center gap put runners at second and third with one out. Terrmel Sledge, struggling in the DH spot hitting just .223, popped out to second for out number two. Then Jose Castillo drove a 2-run double into the right-center gap to take a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Uchikawa drove in two more in the 5th inning, and Ide Shotaro's lead-off double in the 7th saw him score on a sacrifice fly two batters later for a total of 6 runs on the BayStars' side of the board.

Shimizu Naoyuki made things a bit worrying in the bottom of the first, giving up a 1-out solo home run to Hara Takuya, Hara's first career home run. After Nakajima Hiroyuki followed the home run with a single to right, Shimizu settled down and only allowed 4 more hits (and 1 more run) through 7 innings of work. Ushida Shigeki tried to give the 'Stars fans a heart attack by walking the first two Lions he faced in the 8th, but managed to get out of that jam with consecutive strike outs and a ground out to second. Yamaguchi Shun, after his less than spectacular appearance in the 11th inning at Chiba Marine Stadium two days before, retired the Lions in order with a shallow fly to right and two swinging strike outs.

Not only was the scoreless streak broken, but the BayStars' latest losing streak was also broken at 4 games. And believe it or not, they've managed to hold onto 4th place in the Central League for the entire month since I'd last written. It seems that the Tokyo Yakult Swallows have dropped out of the race early, and the Hiroshima Toyo Carp just keep pace with the BayStars, hovering between a half game to two games behind (currently one game back). A 7 wins and 13 record for May was not good at all. That included a 6 game losing streak at home from May 8th to 16th. But Hiroshima for May were 8 wins and 14, as I said, pretty much matching the 'Stars in an inability to win.

Let's compare the two with regard to runs scored and allowed in May. The Carp scored 95 while allowing 116 runs compared to Yokohama's 67 runs scored to 92 runs allowed the past month. Yep, I'm happy to say the Yokohama has addressed the pitching problem pretty well this year. But now the offense is clearly a liability.

So where do we begin at disassembling the offense? RBIs? Sledge leads the team with 38, followed by Murata with 32, Uchikawa with 28, and Castillo with 20. These are the cleanup guys, and while Sledge has the lowest batting average of the group, he's definitely delivering more often than the others.

Ishikawa Takehiro is hitting .328 in the leadoff spot, so he's getting on base just fine, although his 8 walks pale in comparison to Uchikawa's 20. Still, Ishikawa's 13 stolen bases are almost half of the BayStars' 31 for the season. And that's why he leads the team with 33 runs scored. I wouldn't compare him to the threat that Akahoshi used to be for Hanshin quite yet, but he's slowly getting there.

Wrapping things up, despite the BayStars holding on to 4th place for an entire month, 3rd place appears to be a long way off. Yokohama is currently 10.5 games out of first, 5 games behind the 3rd place Chunichi Dragons. This whole "games behind" thing can be seriously misleading, though. 5 games back just means that if Yokohama wins 5 and Chunichi loses 5 that they'll be even. But that combination seems very unlikely. Especially when comparing the teams to a .500 record. Chunichi is 2 games over .500 (27 and 25), whereas Yokohama is 8 games under .500 (21 and 29). Those 8 games seem much more daunting than anything else. More than passing the Dragons, I'd just like to see us up over the hump of .500 ball.