The Big Bamboo - May 8, 2013

Five wins in a row and a positive win/loss record were just too much to ask for when facing Hiroshima's Kan Ohtake. Ohtake defeated the Yokohama BayStars 3-2, his third win against Yokohama (of Hiroshima's 5 wins), throwing brilliantly up to Norihiro Nakamura's 2-out, 2-run double in the top of the 9th inning. Kameron Mickolio threw one pitch and got Keijiro Matsumoto to ground out to short for the save.

But, oh, Ohtake simply shut down everyone but Nori. April MVP Tony Blanco went down whiffing three times, totally fooled, and grounded out to third. Alex Ramirez, with two on and nobody out in the 9th, went down on strikes in a pinch hit appearance.

Nakamura, for his part, hit a triple in the 2nd inning, singled in the 4th, grounded back to Ohtake in the 7th, then doubled in the only two BayStar runs in the 9th. Only a home run (deeply needed) short of the cycle. Since leading up to hitting 2,000, Nori has now hit safely in his last 8 games, this being the 5th game of those 8 with multiple hits. He really shows no sign of stopping at 2,000, unlike Rami-chan (who I really hope starts contributing again soon).

There was really one one other pair of highlights to this game that I saw. It came from two pitches from the two different Yokohama pitchers.

First, BayStar starter Yohta Kosugi hit two catchers with the same pitch. He hit the batter, Hiroshima catcher Yoshiyuki Ishihara, with a pitch in the bottom of the second inning that reflected off of him and onto Kazunari Tsuruoka's right shoulder. Tsuruoka shook it off and continued playing.

The second incident was Hiroshi Kobayashi hitting Jun Hirose in the bottom of the 7th with a pitch that reflected off of him and, again, onto Tsuruoka's right shoulder. This one really looked like it hurt. I half thought that Hirose's bat might have hit him somehow.

Hirose was taken out of the game for a pinch runner, but was clearly fine. Tsuruoka was pinch hit for in the top of the 8th, but nothing was mentioned of his condition. I think that he may need to consider shoulder pads while catching in the future.