Every Year is Golden Year in Chiba
This series in Yokohama is tough to predict. One might think a warming up Chiba offense could give Yokohama arms fits, but it didn’t play out that way two weeks ago at QVC. The starting pitching is full of intrigue as Yuta Ohmine makes a surprise start in Game 2, with New New Lefty Ace Fujioka in Game 2.
A series split with Hanshin isn’t exactly convincing me to put more stock into the 2014 Marines. Putting it perspective though, it was nice to actually see Our Marines show some signs of life after the beating we took in the previous series at Yomiuri. We’re an even 8-8 in our interleague campaign, and can probably write off any dreams of catching the 12-6 CL leading Giants, or 12-6 PL leading Buffaloes. Meanwhile, the picture in the PL standings shows us four games under .500 and in fourth place.
Interleague play started well for us and hopefully that continues against the Giants. We’re 2-0 against Tokyo teams and have a chance to make it 4-0 on Friday and Saturday. We’re riding a three game winning streak, and it seems that MAYBE things are starting to come together for Our Marines. Perhaps the everyday lineup is beginning to take shape. With the recent heroics of Ogino and Katoh, we may actually be on a path to achieving the balance of old and new that we hoped for at the beginning of the year. Cautious optimism abound.
I Love Interleague play. I always say this and it’s simply true. There’s some changes I would make to the format – the proposal to split the play into two halves, one earlier and one later in the season – makes sense to me, but as it stands the set of short, two game series against all the CL teams is pretty neat. One of the highlights for me is the 2 series with Yakult as I follow Yakult a bit and have been known to cheer them on at Jingu when Lotte is off or out of town.
Wednesday’s win in Osaka halted a four game losing streak, pulling Our Marines back to a game below .500. Lotte followed a six game win streak that earned them a place in the top half of the PL standings by Lotte going 2-5 in their last seven games. We still occupy the third spot in the Pacific League even after the skid, as we prepare to host Rakuten for a three game weekend set at the Q.
The last series started with a no-hitter and ended in a true heartbreaker. After a nice winning streak for Our Marines, the ship has started to list a bit, with 3 losses in the last 4 games.
So it’s on to Osaka and Orix, and time to face the best pitching team in Japan. Orix has had its issues as well as of late, just getting swept by Hamu.
The first home series? Yeah, not so good. But that’s OK, the rotation is reset, we get a do-over. It’s time for the first weekend home series, and I don’t know about you but to us at We Love Marines, that’s the REAL start of the season.
139 wins in a row starts now.
After a brutal opening series, Our Marines are poised to officially open up QVC Marine Field for 2014. The home opener features our Kanto rivals the Seibu Lions. You may remember the Lions from Stage One of last year’s Climax Seires, where we took two of three in Tozorazawa to end their season. We also crossed paths in the offseason with Class A free agent pitcher Hideaki Wakui deciding to dump Seibu in order to sign with Lotte for two years, 440 million yen. Hopefully we can rebound from the weekend’s sweep, starting Tuesday night and onto Wednesday and Thursday for twin matinee 2:00 starts.
We just took a look yesterday at the pitchers for the 2014 version of Our Marines. The pitching situation is pretty straightforward with a lot of depth both in the rotation and in the pen. The situation for position players is a bit different, though, with lots more variables to consider.
Happy 2014 from We Love Marines! Now that the 2013 season is officially in the books with Rakuten as champs and Our Marines in a strong second place1, it’s time to review some of the players and moments that made this season so memorable.