On June 30, 2010 Yuta Ohmine beat the Softbank Hawks 7-3 at Chiba Marine Stadium. Tsuyoshi, Kim Taekyun, and Takehara were in the starting lineup, and Matoba caught Ohmine. It was a long time ago in baseball years.
On May 5, 2013 Yuta Ohmine finally got another ichi-gun win with a nice 2-1 victory over – again – Softbank, this time in Fukuoka. What a long road it’s been for the former #1 draft pick! This one boiled down to the pitching – second year budding ace Takeda vs Ohmine and the Lotte pen. Takeda pitched damn impressively last year vs Lotte – I was in attendance in Fukuoka last July when he shut us down completely – and he earned a win just last week over Ohmine in QVC.
The Softbank bats did what Lotte couldn’t do in the first – get the runner home from second. Hasegawa drew a walk vs Ohmine and Uchikawa brought him in with a timely single. Just like that, 1-0 Hawks. But Ohmine didn’t quit – he allowed only 3 more hits and two walks, no more runs before leaving for Hattori in the 6th. It was a nice bit of pitching – plenty of movement on his pitches and no real trouble.
Our Marines couldn’t solve Takeda at all until the 5th. Well-placed hits by Daichi and Kiyota put two on for Okada, who brought in a critical run with a single for the second game in a row to tie it. In the 6th Kakunaka led off with a single and Iguchi followed with another to put runners on the corner with no outs. Takeda got Whitesell and Imae and looked like he might get out of the inning, but too much nibbling led to consecutive walks – Kiyota’s would bring in a run that would prove to be the game winner.
Only 6 hits for Lotte but that’s all that was needed. The series is wrapped up already after Lotte’s 5th win in a row, but we go for the second sweep in a row on the road with Abe facing emergency spot starter (and sometimes Prince lookalike) Morifuku.
Hot: The Lotte pen – 3 2/3 innings, only 1 hit and 6 Ks for Hattori, Nakagoh, Matsunaga, and Masuda. Masuda gets his 10th save and Matsunaga continues to be the setup man Masuda was last year. Kakunaka ran his hitting streak to 5 games. Okada gets a game-tying RBI for the second game in a row.
Not so much: Whitesell has looked completely lost at the plate this series. Lotte catchers continue to be an offensive black hole but the defense and pitch calling has been nice.