I’m more than a little late with this, but I have a good excuse, really! After Saturday’s second game vs Chunichi I hopped a Shinkansen down to Osaka for the Sunday-Monday series with the Hanshin Tigers in famous Koshien. We were not alone on our journey, either. On the platform at Tokyo station there were …
Author: Steve Novosel
I've gotta write, usually my voice is shot from yelling too much during Lotte games!
Interleague Game 4: Dragonslayers
Game 2 of the Chunichi-Lotte series kicked off at the unusual Saturday start time of 13:00 at a hot and sunny Chiba Marine Stadium. Up on the hill was Watanabe Shunsuke, who was looking for redemption after the I-won’t-admit-it-actually-happened 18-0 shellacking at the hands of Seibu, a game which he started and took the loss. …
Interleague Game 3: Dragooned
Interleague play continued as the Chunichi Dragons roared into town for the second interleague matchup. Unfortunately the fizzling offense from Wednesday’s game with Yokohama made another appearance as Chunichi took the first game 4-1. Much like Naruse’s start on Wednesday Lotte starter Ohmine didn’t pitch all that poorly, but there was no offensive help to …
Interleague Game 2: Bay Star Supernova
Forgive me if this sounds completely ridiculous – and believe me, I think it does, too – but despite giving up 3 HRs to the worst team in the Central League at home, Naruse Yoshihisa was really, really damn good in tonight’s 4-1 loss to Yokohama. How can that be? Let’s look at the way …
Interleague Game 1: Return of the Baby-Faced Killer
Yokohama cruised up the Shuto B today to visit Chiba Marine Stadium for the opening game of the 2009 Interleague season. Looking every bit like an escapee from one of the many school groups visiting tonight who jumped the fence, grabbed a uniform, and took the mound – 19-year old Karakawa Yuki mowed down batter …
Game Report: Seibu vs Lotte, 5/17
Lotte entered today’s game with Seibu needing a win to decidedly wipe the stink of Friday’s game off the weekend. With high winds in the area and rain threatening to interrupt the game the Marines put away the Lions 8-5 to take the series 2 games to 1. With this win Lotte has also won …
Game Report: Seibu vs Lotte, 5/16
Friday’s first game in the Seibu-Lotte series was a washout (though for some reason various publications reported the score as ‘Seibu 18, Lotte 0’, which is a really odd thing to report for a rainout. I guess we’ll just look past it as if it never happened) so Saturday Lotte was looking to recover their …
Game Report: Seibu vs Lotte, 5/15
Lotte returned home on Friday to try to shake the bad taste of Thursday night’s collapse at the hands of Softbank. Mission accomplished! The bats came to life in a huge way tonight – 18 runs on 17 hits, a total destruction of all that is decent and good – as Lotte crushed the hopes …
Game Report: Lotte vs Softbank, 5/14
Ugh. It’s not my fault, I couldn’t have jinxed them. No really, I couldn’t have — I was watching the game recorded, not live. No, it can’t possibly be my fault, even though I started to write this post – with victory in mind, searching for pictures of brooms to represent ‘sweep’ – before the …
Game Report: Lotte vs Softbank, 5/13
Tonight the 3-game set with Softbank shifted from the Yahoo Dome to just down the road in Kitakyushu. Looking to build on last night’s tense 2-1 win, Lotte put on quite a show, pummeling the Hawks on their own turf 7-0. It was a multi-pronged attack, helped in great part by the new rule change …