It was a rough three nights in Tokyo for the Marines, but a little home cooking was just what the doctor ordered for an ailing club. Lotte snapped their 3 game skid with a convincing 7-0 win over the Hiroshima Carp. Ohmine pitched a complete game shutout to put Chiba back in the win column. Here’s the recap:
Pitching:
I don’t know much about Ohmine’s history, but I’ve been told he’s traveled on a long road since his days as a highly touted high school hurler. The tears in his eyes while giving this evening’s hero interview told the story of a pitcher who has paid his dues to get where he is. And oh boy, did he flourish when his team needed him the most.
Ohmine settled down quite nicely after giving up a double to the first batter of the game. He pitched effectively through 5 innings, scattering 4 hits. With a battle worn bullpen, it was clearly a priority to ride Ohmine out as long as possible. It wouldn’t have been unreasonable to pull him with two runners on and 0 out in the 6th, or two runners on with 1 out in the 7th. But, Itoh’s trust in Ohmine paid off. Even after 113 pitches going into the 8th, he persevered through two more innings of gutsy scoreless pitching. After 9 innings and 139 pitches, Ohmine could call himself the hero, earning a complete game shutout. Ohmine’s final pitching line: 9IP, 0ER, 7H, 7K, 3BB.
Hitting:
The offense deserves its fair share of the credit for putting Chiba in position to win tonight. The M.O. for much of the year has been a bounty of base runners, but a lack of timely hitting to bring them home. Tonight’s 7 runs on 8 hits hopefully points to a reverse in that trend. Runs scored on the following plays:
3rd inning, 3 runs:
Ogino’s RBI triple to left center, set up by an Ishimine infield hit and Nemoto sac bunt.
Iguchi’s 2 run HR to left, knocking in Ogino.
4th inning, 1 run:
Kei Hosoya led off with a single to center. After advancing on an Emura bunt, and Ishimine ground out, he scored on a wild pitch.
5th inning, 2 runs:
Ogino and Iguchi led off with back to back walks. Imae advanced both runners with a deep foul ball fly out to right. Kiyota hit an RBI ground out (mostly thanks to Ogino’s speed) and Daichi Suzuki followed with an RBI single that just floated over second base into center.
7th inning, 1 run:
Imae crushed a solo shot to very deep left center to make it 7-0. Both his and Iguchi’s homeruns were quite impressive, given the constant wind blowing directly off Tokyo Bay into left field all night.
Final thoughts:
It was quite nice to see our boys bounce back from a deflating three game stretch. A 7-0 win may seem somewhat lacking in drama, but tonight’s game was quite a cathartic experience. I had the pleasure of attending the game with family and friends – Steve, my brother in law Toshihiro, and my sister in law Yuko. The sense of joy was palpable throughout QVC Marine field this evening. Can’t ask for more. One more game with the Carp, and then the Tigers come to town. Carp fans were well represented tonight, and you can always expect the Tigers faithful to show up in droves. I should be in attendance all week. Can’t wait for more baseball tomorrow. Thanks to Steve for the photos…
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I was really impressed with the confidence Itoh showed in Ohmine. Certainly he would have previously been pulled when at around 100 pitches and in trouble in the 7th if not when he was in he jam in the 6th. But Itoh let him pitch and Ohmine fought to get the complete game.
Great work by the coaches, by catcher Emura (who called a nice game) and of course Ohmine.
I’m also so happy to see T Ogino regaining his star power. I firmly believe if he didn’t lose close to 2 years due to knee injuries he would be one of the premier players in Japan right now. He’s so disruptive.
What a great way to put a stop to that losing streak!! And it makes me extra happy to see that my favorite player Ohmatsu get a homerun in a ni-gun win, too! 🙂
I saw the Ohmatsu HR! Well, on Gaora. He crushed that one, so nice to see. I’d love to see him get another chance at ichi-gun this year.
Is Gaora some kind of streaming site? I gotta find a way to watch games some day soon. Been following Marines for three years and have only managed to watch one game from home thanks to NHK. orz
Ohmatsu hit a homerun (and Lotte’s only run) at my first baseball game, so no matter how he does he’ll have a special place in my heart. Which I don’t think people around me liked too much when he was put in games last year. I freak the eff out. lol
Gaora is a BS/Sky Perfect channel. They carry all things Tigers and Fighters including some Kamagaya games.
You don’t know about Pacific League TV? You MUST get it!
http://tv.pacificleague.jp/
ALL PL games, and they are archived by inning so you can watch games anytime. Works great on mobile and desktop. Couldn’t live without it. Usually i am watching the game on my phone as I go home and then on TV when I get there. There’s a few road interleague games not covered but all home and all PL-only games are there. Very very good site.
Live “free” feeds are almost always on one of the dodgy sites, too, but PL TV is so much nicer and has the archives available.
I completely freak out anytime T Ogino comes up, so I sympathize, I sympathize….
Wow, it sounds like NHL Gamecenter! Don’t know how we’d make it through a season without that thing. I had heard of the service, but figured I’d need a Japanese credit card and gave up. Do you know if they take overseas cards or other payment methods? I’d love to get in on it after kouryuusen. I’m at work during 90% of games, so being able to rewatch whenever would be pretty great. Much better than hoping interesting clips show up on YouTube. lol
They take Yahoo Wallet, Rakuten Anshin Shiharai, credit card (I used this – it was a Japanese credit card but perhaps a foreign one works as well), and the Docomo + Au Smartphone payment services, apparently. So I assume one of those will probably work. I think you can just use Yahoo Wallet with a Japanese Bank – Craig might be able to comment on this since he’s got the service too?
Ya, I use an American credit card. It’s no problem. Just watch out, it set off my fraud protection the first time it charged me.
Ahh, then there’s no excuse. If I can’t get something to work through my bank account, I’ll try a credit card. If my stupid checking card works correctly for once, that would be perfect even when I move home! Thanks for the info.
Why don’t they have Softbank as a payment option though? You’d think they’d be the first ones to jump in since it’s Pacific League. lol
And I think you were mentioning possible juiced balls recently? I just read an article on facebook on the topic: http://www.iza.ne.jp/news/newsarticle/sports/npb/646839/.