Game 110 @ Baystars: Austin’s Power Too Much

I’ll give the team this much. After playing at Koshien in the first part of the week, they headed west to Hiroshima for a pair of games, and then traveled to Yokohama just for this one game. I mostly expected they would be tired and struggle against Shota Imanaga, who is historically good against our guys. He threw an outstanding game, and our bats managed just a single early run that followed the same pattern as their first run on Friday: double, bunt, grounder. Anyhow, the story here was that Joe Gunkel got beaten badly on two (not terrible) pitches by some really talented hitters. Also, Kosuke Baba took one on the chin in relief. Not our night, but we can thank the Dragons for beating down on the second-place Swallows.