And yet so far …
Discussion in the Japanese Baseball Daily forum
About
This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
Copyright (c) 1995-2024 JapaneseBaseball.com.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.
Maeda losses no-no bid, game in 9th
The Yakult Swallows went from the brink of the most embarrassing way to close out the regular season to scattering a few postseason seeds of hope with a walk-off win over the Hiroshima Carp on Tuesday night at Jingu Stadium.
Hiroshima starter Kenta Maeda carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning, but gave up a one-out double for the first hit, lost his shutout three batters later and slumped off the field as the loser after pinch-hitter Kazuki Fukuchi's game-winning single in a 2-1 decision.
Maeda, bidding for the season’s only no-no, surrendered a looping double down the left-field line to Atsushi Fujimoto, who was just the third batter to reach base off last year’s Sawamura Award winner.
Tsuyoshi Ueda’s infield single to short and a walk to Hiroyasu Tanaka loaded the bases for cleanup man Kazuhiro Hatakeyama, who beat the relay throw to first to avoid a double play.
Fukuchi, hitting .140 coming in, laced his second-career walk-off hit in 14 seasons into left field. His first was Oct. 9.
Yakult’s Shinya Miyamoto finished the season with a .302 average to became the fourth 41-year-old to hit over .300. The last was [current Chunichi skipper] Hiromitsu Ochiai in 1996.
Maeda (10-12) allowed three hits and three walks with four Ks to take the loss.