Forget all that stuff that happened on Friday – we are all about good news at We Love Marines, and we want to celebrate the great weekend Our Marines put together! On Saturday, Lotte got a sayonara single from Saburo in the bottom of the 9th to walk away with a 3-2 victory. And on Sunday, Lotte bats beat the heck out of Softbank arms to the tune of 11 runs on 17 hits, cruising to a 11-3 win. This makes Our Marines the first Pacific League team to 40 wins!
Tag: Yuji Nishino
Back in the Swing of Things
On a splendid summer afternoon at QVC Marine Field, the Marines edged the Nippon Ham Fighters with a 2-1 victory. With veterans Okada and Ohmatsu in the lineup and Nishino on the bump, Lotte shook off some early troubles with the same coolness as the breeze blowing in off Tokyo Bay.
Shutdown in QVC
The DeNA (nee Yokohama) BayStars rolled in to QVC on a damp Wednesday evening fronted by their ace, Daisuke Miura. 9 innings later Our Marines had been completely shutdown as Miura and Co. emerged on top via a a 3-0 shutout. With the loss, Chiba has dropped 4 in a row and the lead in the Pacific League is down to 1.5 games.
Nishino Is At It Again!
Last we saw young Yuji Nishino at QVC Marine Field he was making Carp batters look foolish in a dominating 8 2/3, 12K performance. Tonight Nishino was up to old tricks – he completely shut down the offense of the visiting Tokyo Yakult Swallows and earned a well-deserved 4-0 victory. With the win and a Seibu loss, Our Marines are back to a 3 game lead in the PL race and are within 0.5 games of Rakuten for the interleague crown. Very nice.
Comeback Marines Are At It Again!
My favorite baseball memory took place in Nagoya Dome. With 2 outs in a tight game, an emerging young Lotte played lofted a ball deep into the gap in right center, driving in what would turn out to be the winning run. That was game 7 of the 2010 Nippon Series and the hero was of course Okada. 30 months later Daichi Suzuki launched a ball to much the same spot scoring two Men in Black and propelling Our Marines to a great come from behind 3-2 win over the Chunichi Dragons.
Duel in the Drizzle
On this damp Monday evening at QVC young righty Yuji Nishino was handed the ball with a tall task: go head-to-head with arguably the best pitcher in Japan – Hiroshima’s Kenta Maeda – and keep Our Marines in the game in the hopes that Itoh’s small ball could scratch out a run or two against the visiting Carp. The Carp are not a dangerous offensive team but no matter – when Maeken is pitching they are always in the game. Nishino did more than his fair share of the lifting tonight, delivering a masterwork of control and power, nearly silencing the Carp attack and boosting Our Marines to a stirring 3-2 victory.
Gatecrash the Tokyo Dome!
Plenty of people thought Yomiuri would be leading the Central League at the start of interleague play, but who are these guys in first in the Pacific? Weren’t they supposed to be horrible? Shouldn’t the Lotte-Kyojin series in game 1 & 2 of interleague feature the first vs last teams? Nope. Our Marines have played …
7 Wins-in-a-Row is a Good Thing, Right? – 8 May 2013
Steve’s Note: This is Craig’s first post here. He’s a huge Chiba Lotte fan – more games than me this year, even – and loves to chat about Lotte. He’s made a short introduction in the About section, so please check it out! An 8-4 win puts us 1/2 game out of first! The …
On A Roll – 4 May 2013
It hasn’t always been pretty, but the 2013 Chiba Lotte Marines are playing some pretty decent ball right now. More importantly, a recent run of 10 wins in 14 games has got Our Marines just 1.5 games out of first place. What happened? The pitching settled down for one. With the exception of the first …
A Series Win!
MY GOD. HE POSTS TWICE IN A WEEK. What can I say, I am in a chatty mood. Here’s what you need to know about the series with Nippon Ham: 2-1. Really, that’s the most important part. We’ve had our troubles against the Fighters in recent years but they’ve lost a lot of guys and …