Mae-Ken baffles Hawks

Kenta Maeda is the future of the Hiroshima Carp's rotation, and he showed it today against the Hawks, who are continuing to struggle in Interleague play. The 7-1 defeat dropped the Hawks to 3-4 in the competition so far, but more disturbing is how badly Kenji Ohtonari pitched today.

Ohtonari was lit up for five runs on seven hits in six innings, taking the loss and falling to 1-6 on the season. The backbreaker came in the 3rd inning, when, with the bases loaded, Tetsuya Kokubo hit a three-run double, but he was gunned down at third trying to stretch it into a triple. This followed a hit by Kenta Kurihara and walks to Jun Hirose and Masato Akamatsu.

It got worse in the 8th with Yang Yao-Hsun on the mound, and he has proven to always be an adventure out there. This time, it was through no fault of his own, as Honda rushed his throw and ended up committing an error that allowed Kurihara to reach. Grizzled veteran Tomonori Maeda cranked a 2-run shot to pound the final nails in the Hawks coffin at 7-0.

However, the real star of the game was Kenta Maeda, who put on a pitching clinic at Yahoo Dome today. In a complete-game effort, he only gave up one run on an RBI double to Hiroaki Takaya, who drove in Honda after he legged out an infield single.

The Hiroshima starter also struck out ten batters in the game, striking out Hiroki Kokubo and Katsuki Yamazaki twice, and recorded at least one K in all but three innings (the 4th, 7th, and 8th).

However, not all news was bad for the Hawks. Yuki Kume returned from ni-gun to pitch a clean inning, his first of the season.

The Hawks will look to get back to .500 for the Interleague competition when they send Tsuyoshi Wada (5-3, 3.55) to the mound against Toshiaki Aizawa (0-0, 0.00).