Let me start by saying that was one of the worst games I have ever attended. At least ones in which the team I was cheering for won. Our starting pitcher worked PAINFULLY slowly. I mean, he put 10 guys on base in his six innings of work, and he always works extra slowly when the bases are not vacant. And so, despite only allowing one run, and despite our guys only getting two in the first five innings, the game was almost 3 hours old midway through the sixth. Here are some of my takes on this game, starting pitcher aside.
First, our run scoring powers… you will notice *NO* detail about the first five we put up, because they came on: a groundout to second, a sacrifice fly, a fielder’s choice, a sacrifice fly, and an error. Not very exciting baseball, especially when you have a four-year old with you. And despite a huge five-run inning to break the game wide open, there was a grand total of TWO hits.
The first of those was by Yoshio Itoi, who hit a lazy fly ball to shallow left, and no one bothered to try catching it. Had he been hustling, he could have easily had second base. Instead he reached first base just as the ball hit the grass. BOO, Itoi! OK, I shouldn’t complain too loudly. He stole two bases, after all. (And for the record, I’m totally OK with the two failed SB attempts in this game, by Kai Ueda and Wilin Rosario. Both were close calls and showed a desire to use speed to win. In fact, this post appears to show that Rosario was in fact safe.)
Considering we had 16 guys reach base, it is disappointing that we only got two home on an actual hit. Three of those guys got stranded during Yusuke Ohyama‘s lone at bat, which again had him struggling to generate offense when golden opportunities are handed to him. But it also goes to show you, the Chunichi Dragons really aren’t a very good team…
It might also interest you to know that Hiroki Uemoto has damaged his ACL (second opinion forthcoming, they say), which means he will miss a minimum of three months.
Starting Pitchers: Yuta Iwasada (1-0, 1.50 ERA) vs. Raidel Martinez (0-0)
2
They scored.
Tigers 0, Dragons 1
2
We scored back.
Tigers 1, Dragons 1
4
We took the lead.
Tigers 2, Dragons 1
6
Their pitcher Tanimoto sucked as bad as I’ve seen any pitcher suck before. But he wasn’t helped by his defense, either. Our lone RBI hit of the game was this one by Takashi Toritani:
鳥谷、レフトオーバーのタイムリーヒットで２点追加！ #hanshin #虎テレ pic.twitter.com/UFXxDQDiCU
— 虎テレ運用担当 (@toratele) May 6, 2018
Tigers 7, Dragons 1
8 & 9
They hit a three-run home run off Tsuyoshi Ishizaki, and then a solo shot off Rafael Dolis, who also loaded the bases up with a combination of soft hits. Despite the nerve-wrecking ending, we won in the end.