Wednesday night in Hiroshima, Randy Messenger left the mound after six innings of work, and down a run to the Carp. He had just set the NPB all-time record for career strikeouts by an import. His strikeout of Seiya Suzuki was the 1416th of his NPB career, one ahead of Genji Kaku, a Taiwanese native who played for the Chunichi Dragons in the 1980s and 90s. Messenger is now 65th on the all-time list in the NPB record book, and will all but certainly move up one spot, ahead of former Tigers lefty Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi, in his next start.
The Tigers actually tied the game up in the top of the seventh, and were just one hit from taking the lead and potentially setting Messenger up for his 100th career win (MLB and NPB combined). Unfortunately, they were unable to do so, instead dropping the game in the bottom of the 11th, and moving into last place. Just one more loss and their playoff hopes would be mathematically impossible.
Flash forward to Thursday night. The team returned to Koshien, where its season record entering the game against the Yakult Swallows was 19-35-2. Despite a solid outing by starter Koyo Aoyagi, a dropped foul fly in the fourth (the offender shall remain nameless) and a wild pitch (you know who did it) put a runner on third base, and their pitcher slapped one through the right side of the infield to break the scoreless tie. Cue the dramatics. With a runner on second in the fifth and two outs, Takashi Toritani stepped up, and lived up to his cheer song. His single up the middle scored the game-tying run, and he advanced to second on the throw home, putting himself in perfect position to give the team a lead.
No dice. And with two outs in the top of the ninth, Rafael Dolis gave some scrub named Okumura his first career home run – the game winner loser. I’d say that it eliminated the Tigers from the postseason, but (1) there were plenty of games this year that were blown that set up this situation, and (2) the Giants win in Hiroshima completed the elimination equation a half inning before this one ended.
For the record, that hit by Toritani was the 2065th of his career, putting him in first place all-time in club history. He surpassed Taira Fujita, who played for the Tigers from 1966 to 1984. Toritani is now 36th on the all-time NPB list for career hits. With a couple more seasons at his 2018 pace (just 50 hits on the year, and limited playing time), he could easily find himself in the top 25 by the time he hangs up his #1.
Sadly, as mentioned earlier, neither of these history-making games ended with a celebration, and the team now has nothing left to play for the rest of the way. It will be interesting to see what happens in the final few games of the year. How many more cuts will be announced? (By the way, besides Tsuyoshi Nishioka’s announcement on Instagram of his dismissal, the team has also given Yuya Yokoyama and Shoya Yamamoto their pink slips.) Will any managers and/or coaches step down? How much upheaval will take place this offseason in an attempt to turn this team into a winner again?
Stay tuned, folks. Though 2018 can be written off, I’m sure there will be plenty more news before Opening Day 2019.