July 27th Kanemura v Yamamoto - Watanabe has a night to forget

Dragons have been totally owerwhelmed by Tigers in July. Last night represented a consolation victory which brought their win total up to two for the month. Tiger's pitcher, Kanemura can count himself unlucky - he handed over a lead only to see Watanabe blow it in a big way. On a totally unrelated note the other Venezualen who joined with Baldris, Ojeda has been released. His pitching did not improve and Tigers decided that they no longer needed him. Fukuhara is now pitching in ni-gun and his return to the top team will be soon. Chris Resop made his first appearance for the Tigers - more of that below. The Magic Number is 43 and could be turned off tonight (CM is 38) Line scores

        1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R  H E
Dragons 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 6 11 1
Tigers  0 0 0 1 0 3 0 0 0 4 11 1

Starting lineups
1. Asai (Right)
2. Hirano (Centre)
3. Arai (First)
4. Kanemoto (Left)
5. Sekimoto (Second)
6. Toritani (Short)
7. Yano (Catcher)
8. Baldris (Third)
9. Kanemura (Pitcher)

Dragons
1. Ibata (Short)
2. Araki (Second)
3. Morino (Third)
4. Wada (Left)
5. Nakamura (First)
6. Inoue (Right)
7. Koike (Centre)
8. Tanishige (Catcher)
9. Yamamoto (Pitcher)

Dragons once again started without Woods. With two outs they were able to put runners on first and second but once again couldn't convert, Nakamura grounding out. Tigers started with a Hirano hit but Arai hit into a double play and that was that. Dragons second saw Kanemura retired the side in order and Yamamoto responded exactly the same way in the Tigers second. Dragons third and the batters continued to fall - no one to trouble the scoreboard there. The bottom of the third and Baldris walked. Kanemura bunted him to second and with two outs Yamamoto faced Asai. Asai has been very ineffective and one has to question the reasoning for playing him as No. 1 batter. Anyway, he grounded out and the scoring chance was lost. The Dragons fourth saw Kanemura's big challenge. Wada hit a two base to left with one out. Nakamura was next and he had a hit moving Wada to third. Kanemura then got Inoue to hit into a double play and the chance went up in smoke - a big out. Tigers fourth was different. Ibata who had a poor game at short messed up the transfer on a standard short ground out and dropped the ball. This put Hirano safe on first. Arai hit but Kanemoto struck out and Sekimoto flew out. It began to look like the Dragons would be safe. Not so - Toritani punched one through the right field for a hit. Hirano was round the bases and it was 1-0 Tigers. Yano struck out and the score didn't increase anymore.

Kanemura then gave up a hit to Tanishige who was bunted to second by Yamamoto but this meant two outs and he was able to get Ibata to fly out. In the bottom of the innings Akahoshi (replacement centre) hit (and this could have been ruled another Ibata error) but was thrown out trying to steal second. This out was questionable as it looked like Akahoshi had touched second safely. The final batter was Asai who grounded out to Morino. The Dragons sixth and Okada decided to replaced Kanemura. He had pitched well and he handed over a lead. It might have been possible for him to pitch the sixth successfully (he had thrown only 75 pitches) but it was a sensible move by Okada to go with his relief pitchers. Watanabe was summoned to the mound and started with an easy ground out to second. However, Sekimoto totally messed this up and Araki was safe on first. Next was Morino who stretched and dug out a wide low pitch in what was a lucky single. Araki had been trying to steal second and the Tigers were prepared for this but no one could have reached Morino's bloop shot. Araki was aware of this and was round to third - no outs. Wada was next and with one strike Yano called for a high pitch but Watanabe left it a bit too low. Wada was onto this and hit the ball deep to right. The throw was good and even though Araki was home easily, Morino was blocked by Yano and tagged out. Well not quite - this is what happened but the home plate umpire ruled him safe and the run was given 2-1 Dragons. It seems everyone was making errors, Yano had done an excellent job here and Morino had not touched the home plate. Wada was round to third and next up was Nakamura. He swung at one pitch which connected with the bottom of his bat and bounced up over Baldris and then landed inside the foul line. A completely lucky hit but 3-1 Dragons and Nakamura was safe on second with no outs.

At this stage Watanabe must have been a bit shell-shocked. Through a combination of poor pitching, errors and extremely bad luck he had turned a 1 run lead into a two run deficit. More was to come though.Inoue flew out and then Koike hit - runners on first and third. Tanishige walked and you began to wonder why Okada persisted with Watanabe who clearly wasn't effective. Tyronne Woods made an appearance as an ineffective pinch hitter. He struck out and this brought up Ibata. He got a high pitch which he hit deep to left for a bases clearing triple 6-1 Dragons. Finally Okada had had enough and Abe took the mound. He made short work of Morino striking out the Dragons third base to end the innings. Dismal pitching by Watanabe had thrown the game away and with it Kanemura's first victory in Tigers colours. Last innings Ochiai had been faced with a dilema - whether to have Yamamoto bat or to replace him with a pinch hitter. He had decided on the latter and now needed a new pitcher. This was Takahashi who immediatley gave up a hit to Hirano. Arai struck out to a nice piece of pitching but Kanemoto also hit - runners on first and second with one out. Sekimoto was next and his magnificent scoring streak continued. Working the count to 1-3 he took his fifth pitch into the left stand for a three run home run 6-4 Dragons and the comfort zone had disappeared. Toritani grounded out but Yano had a two base hit. Baldris though also grounded out to end the innings.

Abe continued into the Dragons seventh and showed himself to be maturing as a pitcher. He retired the batters in order. Asao took the Tigers seventh and with one out faced Hiyama (pinch hitter). As so often this season he hit - a two base and Tigers were in with a chance. However, both Hirano and Arai failed to convert Shoda (pinch running for Hiyama) and the score remained the same. The Dragons eighth saw the first appearance of Chris Resop who's debut was spectacular. His control still needs a little polish but he threw nothing under 152 kph (speeds were 153, 152, 155, 152, 156, 155, 154, 154) and needed only eight pitches to dispose of the three batters he faced. Asao continued into the bottom and gave up a leadoff hit to Kanemoto but nothing came of this. For Dragons ninth, Okada went with Kubota. He gave up a leadoff hit to Tatsunami (pinch hitter) who was pinch run for by Arai. He was bunted to second but Kubota wasn't going to let anyone else get on base and the next two batters went nowhere. For Tiger's ninth Ochiai summoned Iwase who showed non of the nerves of previous games. He gave up a hit to Akahoshi but was otherwise untroubled - Dragons victory.

This time the Dragons had won fairly comfortably. They had taken their chances in the sixth and despite the slice of luck had deserved their victory. Yamamoto recorded his 199th win and so the next victory will see him join the 200 win club. Resop looked impressive and one hopes he can build on his good start.