April 10, 2019
Twelve hours have passed since the home opener at Koshien ended, and I am still unable to process everything that went down. Here’s a list of a few unbelievable plays/events from the game:
- Ryutaro Umeno hit a flare to right that should have been tracked down and caught, but somehow evaded Neftali Soto’s glove, trickled past him, and resulted in a 2-RBI triple.
- Onelki Garcia once again looked like a batting practice pitcher out there, as guys sprayed balls to all fields. Even many of the 12 outs he got were solid line drives and balls hit to the wall.
- Garcia also knocked in the tying run in the 4th inning on a play that should have ended 1B Jose Lopez’s perfect fielding streak. The judges mercifully called it a hit, but that smelled like a stinky error from where I was sitting.
- Takashi Toritani plays 3 steps too close to home and a Yamato grounder gets past him to allow two insurance runs to score.
- Koji Chikamoto attempts a stolen base (and succeeds) when the team is down 5 runs and just three innings to go. Not the wisest of moves but it paid off. And their catcher threw the ball to center.
- Umeno throws out two base stealers on his pitcher’s strikeouts, ending two threats in two separate innings.
- He hits a home run on the ensuing leadoff
at bat on the second of those two put-outs. - Yusuke Ohyama hits a soft (but kind of high) liner to second, it gets dropped and our inning stays alive when it shouldn’t.
- Kosuke Fukudome lofts one to shallow right-center. Soto jogs under it and the ball caroms off his glove, allowing the tying, go-ahead and insurance runs to score.
- Umeno hits for the cycle, miraculously (see above, too) when his gapper to right-center gets fielded by (you guessed it) Soto, whose rally throw helps get the runner out at home. If the runner had been safe, Umeno would have been credited with another triple… but since he had still not reached third, he got the double he needed.
WHAT. A. GAME.
Final Score: Hanshin 12, Yokohama 8
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