Lotte WINS 4-2, Satozaki Retires a Hero
Orix: Kazumasa Yoshida (5-5 3.56) @ Lotte: Hideaki Wakui (7-12 4.31)
Tonight we honored Tomoya Satozaki and his retirement after 16 seasons as catcher for Our Marines. Sato-chan was with Lotte for two Nippon Series Championships, 2005 & 2010, also winning World Baseball Classic Gold in 2006. Injuries have kept him out nearly all year, but he was given one last chance for a goodbye with the start tonight leading off as DH.
We’re working on a Satozaki tribute post that’ll be up within the week. In the meantime, both Steve and I were in attendance tonight, so below is some media we took. This was the second-to-last game of the season, with Our Marines officially dropping out of contention last Thursday. Thus, tonight was all about Satozaki.
Here’s some video Steve shot from our seats:
Quick mention about the game. Wakui got his first career home win at QVC, going 6 innings for 1 earned run. Kakunaka drove in 3 runs on a 1st inning RBI single and 3rd inning 2-run home run. Nemoto drove in the other run, following Kakunaka with an RBI single of his own in the 1st. Katoh made a great catch in the 6th, perhaps one of the best of the year. We’ll have to decide soon for our upcoming season review posts. For now, enjoy the Satozaki love.
Digest from Pacific League TV
Box Score in English
Here’s a quick gallery of some photos. Most are from Steve’s camera, others from my iPhone. We didn’t have the greatest seats, but I’ll trade that for a crowd of 30,000+ every time.
Great night. The game was secondary, if not tertiary to everything else. The crowd stayed forever to see Sato’s ceremony and speech, as well as his final lap around the stadium. I’ve been really sad about his retirement – no lie, I cried when I heard the news – but his buoyant attitude and smile made the night more of a celebration than a requiem.
For the fans who made this their last game of 2014, they couldn’t have possibly ended their season on a more enjoyable note. For the rest of us – one more game to go, and I suspect it will be a fun one. I’m really looking forward to it.
Craig and Steve, Great shots and glad th both of you had been there to witness the celebration.