I hated Wadaball. So did most of you. And when his time at the helm ended in October 2015, and Tomoaki Kanemoto took over the reins, there was a lot of excitement in Tigerland. Things were going to be different, at last! Aniki’s team would be faster and (much) stronger than the yawn-inducing lineup Yutaka Wada put on the field, and somehow led to a Climax Series win.
But has much changed, really? I’ll tell you this much: I hate Kanemotoball just as much as, if not more than, I hated Wadaball. You’ve read about the first reason I still don’t like Kanemoto any more than I did on Episode 71 of the H-TEN podcast (released in October 2017).
So what else bugs me about the man who’s led our team to a 29-30 record so far this season? (By the way, if 84 is the bare minimum number of wins it will take to win the CL pennant, this club has to go no worse than 55-29 the rest of the way. In other words, they pretty much have to win every three-game series 2-1. Not gonna happen. I don’t care that they’re only 3.5 games out of first right now. They’re still not even a .500 team!)
Why not, you ask? Reason #2 that I don’t respect Kanemoto’s management “skills”:
Kanemoto Lacks (In-Game) Management Skills
I don’t expect him to manage a Japanese team like an MLB manager, but surely he can be a bit of a student of the game, and take a few lessons from his skippers across the sea. You don’t need to…
A. Use your #8 hitter to bunt a runner over.
Especially if you’re not subbing your pitcher for a pinch hitter! How many times have we seen Ryutaro Umeno drop a bunt down to get a runner into scoring position, only to see the pitcher strike out to end the inning? Even if there’s an out left after that… is it really worth sacrificing two outs for one base? If you’re that intent on bunting at the bottom of the order, put your pitcher in the 8 slot! Give Umeno a chance to hit guys in, instead of having him bunt them over! Could be worse though, he could…
B. Automatically resort to the “safety squeeze” when Umeno is up and a runner is on third with less than two outs.
We have seen it a bunch of times, especially since the end of the 2017 season. It’s worked a few times. But it’s also *NOT* worked a bunch MORE times. The worst such case was last Tuesday night against the Orix Buffaloes. Yusuke Ohyama led off with a double. Umeno bunted him over to third. Fumiya Hojoh tried, and failed, to lay down a squeeze bunt. Ohyama remained on third, and fortunately, their pitcher threw the ball in the dirt and Hojoh was safe. Great! So let’s try ANOTHER bunt, then! Three in a row! Kai Ueda fouled his first attempt, and went on to hit strike out. No run scored. “We were going for the tie, which is especially important when playing at home,” the explanation went. I thought bunting left the building with Wada! Nope. It’s getting worse and worse, in fact.
Every team in the league knows it’s coming already! Case in point: with Takashi Toritani on third and nobody out, you guessed it (so did the Lotte Marines): squeeze bunt coming your way! First pitch was wide and Umeno laid off. Second attempt was also wide and left alone by the bunter, but their catcher gunned Tori down at third, which was the beginning of the end of that rally.
And then there’s today (Saturday) against the Rakuten Eagles. I know Norimoto is a good pitcher, but calling for a sac bunt FIVE times in a single game, with NO results??? (Note: the sixth time, it “worked” except that Masahiro Nakatani‘s double would have scored the runner from first. Plus the Tigers got two more hits in the inning.)
The bunting is MADNESS. Which can also be said about…
C. Loading the lineup with lefty or righty hitters, depending on the starter.
I get it. The percentages say that lefties are more likely to hit righty pitchers well, and vice versa. I also get that Hanshin’s hitters are, by and large, not skilled enough to be put in the lineup every night, regardless of the opposing pitcher. But actually, there are tons of variables beyond just the opposing pitcher: ballpark, a hitter running hot/cold, a hitter’s ability/inability to hit certain pitches, defensive competence, even our own starter (and whether or not he needs fielders with range, sure hands, good throwing, or what).
Not only that, but by insisting stubbornly on such a formulaic lineup formation, you’re sending a message to your young players: I don’t trust you to learn this skill in game situations. And so, when will they learn them? When they get sent down to the farm? If not then, the next chance they might get in an actual game situation would be next spring, when pitchers tend to use their secondary pitches less, meaning it’s still not an authentic situation. But can the team afford to wait that long before letting these kids learn? I just don’t think this strategy shows much foresight. Speaking of which…
D. Failing to read the other team’s strategy
The other day, the Marines had a righty on the mound, and our team needed to produce a run. With our pitcher due up, Kanemoto sent in a lefty hitter (Hayata Itoh) to pinch hit. The other team then went to their bullpen and fetched a southpaw. So the countermove was to pinch-pinch hit Fumihito Haraguchi (righty) for Hayata. HUH?
So you wasted Hayata because he’s a lefty and they were bringing in a lefty? First: you don’t trust Hayata at all against lefties? Second: you didn’t foresee this happening? You must not be very good at chess, Tomoaki. Know your pieces, how and when to use them. But then that explains why…
E. There is lots of wasted talent on the bench every night
Two outs in the top of the seventh, no score, runner in scoring position, and lefty Ueda (terrible swing) due up against (arguably) the best fastball in NPB. Pinch hit? Nah. We don’t need the run. Sure, we have 5-6 capable guys on the bench who stand much more of a chance. Let’s save them for later, in case we need to do another one of those clever pinch-pinch hits! (Maybe he read even more into this, knowing that a pinch hitter would have gotten automatically walked to first. But guess who was due up next? Red-hot, reliable Kento Itohara. No-brainer here, folks.)
I could probably go all the way to Z with this list. And yet I realize that I am just an armchair manager. If I were in Kanemoto’s shoes, I wouldn’t be very competent, either. Still, as long as I can hide behind my computer screen and spout these criticisms of our manager, I will. Stay tuned, everyone. Part 3, my biggest pet peeve of them all, will be released soon enough.