Fukudome, Egoshi hit HRs, Tigers Romp 10-1
Last season, the Tigers won just 2 games at Tokyo Dome in 13 tries. They needed just 3 games to match the total under new manager Tomoaki Kanemoto.
Fukudome gets accolades from his teammates after a 2-run blast. Messenger would get 2 RBIs of his own just a few batters later.
Game 12 – Thursday, 4/7: Despite the clean-up hitters striking out consecutively to Giants rookie pitcher Kentaro Taira, they were able to chase him before the fourth inning was over. The game seemed to turn on Taira’s “hit” to right field in the bottom of the third – the one that saw him gunned down at first by Kosuke Fukudome. In his subsequent at bat following a Matt Hague walk, Fukudome crushed the second pitch he saw deep into the right field stands. The fun continued as Takashi Toritani walked, Tsuyoshi Nishioka singled and Taichi Okazaki walked the bases loaded. With two outs, starting pitcher Randy Messenger sliced one just out of the second baseman’s reach, scoring two more.
The party had just started, though. The very next inning, the Tigers got five more – on a Mauro Gomez single, a Toritani sacrifice fly, an Okazaki double (scoring two), and a wild pitch.
On the mound, Messenger was his solid self. He got himself into a few jams – a leadoff double in the first, and again with runners on second and third with no outs in the fifth. Both times he calmly induced infield pop-ups and ground outs to keep the bagels coming. In the sixth, the Giants put a single up on the board on a soft single over short.
Just to give the Tigers double digits for the first time on the year, as well as to give Kanemoto more to think about when shaping his lineup, pinch hitter Taiga Egoshi hit a long ball to start the ninth.
Final Score: Tigers 10, Giants 1.
The Tigers return to Koshien three games over .500, and end their road trip with an impressive 5-3-1 record. Click here for a look at the current standings.
I would love to see Egoshi batting 6th tomorrow and maybe Toritani 2nd.
I’ve been cheering for Yokota and Yohkawa for a year now and I hope they both become key members for the Tigers in the future but we need all the power we can get against the Carp this next series.
I think Yokota can be a power hitter but atm I think he’s too focused on getting infield singles and defences seem to have figured him out. I say let him work on his swing for a few days and see if Egoshi can hit consistently as a starter.
Happy for Messenger’s long awaited first win. I hope he gets many more this season. He definitely deserves them.
I wonder when Kanemoto will tinker with the hitting order. On one hand, it has been producing runs as it is. On the other hand, certain players (cough, cough, Yokota) have tended to stagnate things a little. I like Toritani in the two-slot myself…
He said he wants to use Egoshi but seemed a little hesitant, perhaps because as you said this order has worked fine so far. That was before today’s homerun. Maybe he realized that it’s fine to change a weak link. To be fair, Yokota creates pressure when he gets on base so it’s not an easy decision to remove him. However, if Egoshi has improved since last season then maybe he can create pressure with his batting (plus he’s fast too).
Exactly right. And Kanemoto isn’t as picky about lefty-righty stuff like Wada, but we do have a lot of lefty bats in the lineup every night, don’t we?
I just noticed that! Last season we hardly had any lefties. How can things change in a year (with a new skipper)!
We also have way to many generic 応援歌. This needs to change!
The group that writes them says one of the conditions of a player getting a song is production on the top squad. But that doesn’t really explain Saka, Shunsuke, etc having their own songs already…