The Tigers came back to Koshien on Tuesday and laid an egg against the Chunichi Dragons on Tuesday. The weather was gloomy after that, too, and it looked as though the rest of the series would be rained out… but somehow they squeezed in the game on Wednesday. Speaking of squeezes, everyone’s favorite catcher came through at two crucial points of the game to lead the team to victory.
Game 73: Fujinami Sputters, Umeno Covers Up
Starting Pitchers: Shintaro Fujinami vs. Yudai Ohno
Fujinami threw a crisp. clean first inning, then struggled through a couple of hard ones. Two walks in the second led to an RBI single (the throw home from the outfield was in time, but the play at the plate was ruled safe). The next inning, he walked a batter with two outs, then surrendered three straight hits, and the deficit was four. Fujinami would continue to mix balls and strikes the rest of the way, getting pulled after one out in the sixth, when he walked his sixth batter.
Fortunately for him, the hitters took him off the hook. First, it was Efren Navarro (double) and Yusuke Ohyama (walk) setting the table for this Ryutaro Umeno blast in the bottom of the 4th…
🐯梅野がミスを自分で取り返す❗
スリーランをスタンドに放り込み
ましたよ❗甲子園でのホームランは新人の
年以来らしいです。👏🏻😆#阪神タイガース #梅野隆太郎 pic.twitter.com/LdAS5Y0i1k— ⚾埼とら⚾今季も怪我無く！ (@yakyuragu) July 4, 2018
Two innings later, Navarro hit a sacrifice fly (nearly dropped in for a single) that scored Naomasa Yohkawa and the game was tied up.
It wasn’t until the bottom of the eighth, after Kentaro Kuwahara pitched a clean top of the inning, that the Tigers pulled ahead. Ohyama hit a triple to right (it was probably wind-aided, but it still counts), and Umeno cashed him in with a “guts play” (the head-first slide into first on a dribbler) single.
Rafael Dolis allowed a single (unearned) run in the top of the ninth, but the Dragons fell short of re-reversing the score, or even drawing even.
7 – 6 