Marinerds, etc.

The game's on BS1, so I don't have to figure out the new pay-to-view streaming video thing!

Getting this up to speed in a moment. The pregame is already on, with some elementary school choir girls singing the national anthem...

                     

Honda 2b                   Kensuke 2b
Kawasaki ss                Nioka dh
Ortiz lf                   Inaba rf
Kokubo 1b                  Shinji 1b
Tamura?! rf                Itoi cf
Lee Bum-ho dh              Koyano 3b
"Wall" Hasegawa cf         NAKATA SHO OMG lf
Matsuda 3b                 Tsuruoka c
Tanoue c                   Kaneko! ss

----------                 ----------
Sugiuchi (15-5, 2.36)      Darvish (15-5, 1.73)

Feel free to ping me in comments or on email/IM if you want to chat about the game!

Wow, didn't realize Darvish and Sugiuchi had the same W/L record last year. It's funny given that Sugiuchi is barely bigger than me.

Weird to see an opening day lineup for the Hawks without Nobuhiko Matsunaka on it, but he's still recovering from knee surgery and working out in the minors. Poor guy.

Top of the first (F 0, H 0)
Honda strikes out swinging. Kawasaki catches an outside pitch on his bat and lines out to short. Ortiz strikes out swinging too!

Nice start for Darvish!

Bottom of the first (F 0, H 0)
Kensuke grounds out to second. Nioka hits a pop fly out to right (caught at second). Inaba fouls a few off before striking out.

(It's nice to see that the crowd still does the clapping to Sky High for Nioka.)

Top of the second (F 0, H 2)
Kokubo leads off with a single to right... and Tamura follows it up with a single to center past a diving Kaneko, Kokubo going to second. Lee bunts up the right side, advancing the runners. Hasegawa grounds to first and... and Shinji can't get ahold of the ball, and by the time he's got it under control, all runners are safe, Kokubo scoring on the error. 1-0. Matsuda grounds to short -- Kaneko to Kensuke is an out at second but Matsuda slides in headfirst at first base ahead of the tag (ugh, I hate headfirst slides, though at least his, he slid onto his stomach instead of just reaching out with his fingers). Tamura scores, 2-0. Tanoue... well, the first pitch bounces in the dirt and Tsuruoka can't block it, so Matsuda is off to second base. Anyway, Tanoue eventually hits a high pop fly that is caught by Kensuke Tanaka to end the inning.

Ow.

It's 1:30pm and I just put in my laundry, so I have to remember to go add fabric softener at 2:10pm.

Bottom of the second (F 0, H 2)
Shinji leads off with a single to center. Itoi grounds one up the middle, off Sugiuchi's glove, and Kawasaki dives to get it and, while still on the ground, without even transferring the ball out of his glove, flicks the ball to Honda at 2nd to get Shinji on a fielder's choice. Koyano... well, during Koyano's at-bat Sugiuchi makes a pickoff throw and totally catches Itoi with a huge lead, so a rundown ensues and Itoi is out. Anyway, Koyano eventually grounds out to second to end the inning.

Top of the third (F 0, H 3)
Honda strikes out swinging, dropped third pitch thrown to first. Kawasaki singles to center. Ortiz... watches Kawasaki steal second, and then strikes out swinging. Kokubo singles to left and Nakata throws the ball in but it's way over the plate, so Kawasaki scores and Kokubo makes it to second. 3-0. Tamura strikes out swinging to end the inning.

I don't really blame Sho Nakata for that one -- Kawasaki was already off running on the hit, it would have probly been pretty hard for most people actually make that an out at the plate.

Wow, look at Kokubo strutting around with that big "C" on his uniform.

Bottom of the third (F 1, H 3)
Sho Nakata strikes out swinging. Tsuruoka grounds out to third. Kaneko singles to center! Yay! Kensuke walks, so there are two on. Nioka singles to left! Kaneko scores!! 3-1 Two runners on still! Inaba JUMP! lines out to third :(

Still, we got a run! Hooray.

Top of the fourth (F 1, H 3)
Lee got hit by a pitch but I was putting in fabric softener so I didn't see where. Hasegawa bunted him up. Matsuda strikes out. Tanoue hits a pop fly out to center.

They keep showing flashbacks to Akiyama and Nashida as players, it's kinda wacky.

Bottom of the fourth (F 1, H 3)
Shinji strikes out. Itoi singles to right! Koyano doubles to center, and Itoi goes to third! Nakata Sho walks, and the bases are loaded! Tsuruoka strikes out, sadly. Kaneko... grounds out up the first-base line, Sugiuchi throwing the ball to first. Argh. :(

Top of the fifth (F 1, H 4)
Honda hits a pop fly out to center, but Kawasaki singles to center. Kawasaki steals second AGAIN during Ortiz's atbat. Ortiz strikes out, whew. Kokubo doubles to center, over Itoi and hitting the back wall, and Kawasaki scores easily. 4-1. Tamura strikes out! Whew.

It has just been brought to my attention that the Giants are CLOBBERING the Baystars over at the Tokyo Dome right now -- it's the 6th inning and the Giants are already up 15-1 -- Daisuke "Hama no Bancho" Miura started for Yokohama and gave up 14 runs (9 earned) in 4 innings. Holy crap. That's two home runs apiece for Sakamoto and Ogasawara and Yoshinobu, as well as one each for Edgar Gonzalez and Shinnosuke Abe.

On the other hand, I will point out that Bancho has one terrible game EVERY pre-season IIRC -- I was there when he was down 10-1 after 4 innings at Jingu last year, but he came back to have a reasonable year. Good to get it out of his system before it counts, right?

Bottom of the fifth (F 1, H 4)
Kensuke hits a pop fly out to center. Nioka singles to left! Inaba hits a pop fly out to left. Shinji grounds out to second to end the inning. Doh.

Time for YMCA! Hey, it's actually English words instead of Hideki Saijo's "Youngman"... wacky.

Top of the sixth (F 1, H 4)
Lee strikes out. Hasegawa grounds out to third. Matsuda grounds out.

Great, it's time for La La La Fighters, the Fukuhara Miho pop song that was really grating on me last year, but after a winter of getting semi-decent at singing it at karaoke, I don't hate it nearly as much (but still vastly prefer Hayami Kentaro's "Fighters Spirits", the Kamagaya song). Fortunately, BS1 saves us from the song by showing highlights of the game.

Bottom of the sixth (F 3, H 4)
Itoi walks and Koyano singles to center! Sho Nakata almost gets hit in the foot with a pitch, the pitch bounces in the dirt and both runners advance on it. Anyway, NAKATA SINGLES TO LEFT!!! and both runners score and the organ plays Popeye the Sailor Man for some reason and whatever, I'll take it. 4-3! Kazuya Murata pinch-runs for Sho Nakata at first base. Tsuruoka comes up bunting and is successful, Murata to second! And finally some Genghis Khan chance music! Hooray. Kaneko hits a grounder up the first-base line, and Kokubo makes a nice dive to get it and back to the base in time for the out, Murata advancing to third. Kensuke... grounds out to short :(

Time for Izayuke Wakataka Gundan, the Hawks theme, except again, BS1 cuts away from it. Teehee.

I would like to say right now that seriously -- you know how I spent two years making fun of Sho Nakata and all -- but if he's going to actually continue working his butt off and stop being such a jackass this year, I will support him. It's nice to see him grow up, basically.

Top of the seventh (F 3, H 4)
Tanoue strikes out. Honda also strikes out. Kawasaki barely misses a grounder to right that goes just foul, and then hits a grounder to third instead that Koyano snags and gets to first just in time. Three down!

Bottom of the seventh (F 3, H 4)
Pitching change: Sugiuchi out, Tadashi Settsu in.

Nioka singles to center! Inaba JUMP!!! shakes the centerfield cameras -- and Inaba himself strikes out :( Shinji sadly hits into a 4-6-3 double play and that ends the inning.

Oh, I forgot to mention this, but during the earlier innings, finalized plans to go to Koshien next week for Senbatsu! (with Shinigami from the japanesebaseball.com forums.) We'll be there on Tuesday and Wednesday and part of Thursday! If you're going or live in the Osaka area and want to hang out and chat baseball, drop me a line!

Top of the eighth (F 3, H 4)
Darvish is up to 118 pitches but is apparently continuing to pitch... 11 strikeouts already!

Ortiz hits a pop fly out to right. Kokubo strikes out! That's 12! Tamura grounds to short, Kaneko throws the ball to first, but it bounces in the ground and Shinji can't get it and hold onto it for the out, so Tamura is safe. Not sure if that's a shortstop error or a first baseman error (probly the former). Lee hits a high pop fly and Kensuke makes the catch to end the inning.

Anyone want to take bets on when Tamura gets injured for the first time this season, by the way?

And the other PL games are OVER:
Seibu beats Lotte 2-1. Naruse had a no-no into the 6th inning, lost it and lost the game (two solo homers by Hiroyuki Nakajima and Dee Brown, apparently), and even BETTER, Brian Sikorski made the save against his former team. Eat THAT, Lotte front office!
The Buffaloes beat Rakuten 1-0. Man, that's harsh. Poor Iwakuma. He and Chihiro Kaneko both went the distance, Iwakuma throwing 107 pitches and Kaneko 106; the only RBI was on a Keiji Ohbiki hit. Hosei pride, yo.

Bottom of the eighth (F 3, H 4)
Brian Falkenborg takes over on the mound for the Hawks.

Itoi hits a grounder up the first base line. Kokubo throws it to Falkenborg, but Falk and Itoi both reach the bag at the same time and the tie seems to go to Itoi for an infield hit. Koyano sadly strikes out. Kazuya Murata! comes up to bat and scoops one out of nowhere, loops it to third, where it JUST bounces out of Matsuda's glove, for a hit. And here's pinch-hitting Tsuboi, who we saw in the on-deck circle a bit ago!!! But rather than the Tsuboi fanfare they're playing the Kita no Kuni Kara chance theme. Anyway, Tsuboi... grounds up the right-field line. Kokubo gets the ball and throws to second in time to get Murata, but the relay back to first is not in time to catch Tsuboi (Falkenborg comes in to cover, and collides with Kokubo). So, runners at the corners for Kaneko... who unfortunately hits a pop fly out to right. Doh.

Top of the ninth (F 3, H 5)
Darvish is still out there pitching. Shota Ohno has taken over the catching duties for the Fighters.

Hasegawa strikes out (there's number 13). Matsuda hits a biiiiiig one out there to the gap in right-center and makes it all the way around to third for a triple, yikes. Tanoue hits a pop fly to right but the relay is not in time... so it's a sacrifice and Matsuda scores, 5-3. Honda hits a fly out to left to end the inning.

Last chance... it'll be pretty sad if Darvish throws a complete game and strikes out 13 and still loses, really.

Bottom of the ninth (F 3, H 5)
Closer Takahiro Mahara is in for the Hawks.

Kensuke hits a pop fly to short. Nioka grounds out to second. So it's down to Inaba... Inaba strikes out and that's the game, Hawks win it 5-3.

How sad.

Kokubo is the game hero. "How do you feel right now? Good opening game?" "Well... uhh... there are 143 more games after this, but sure, it's nice to win the opener. Getting 5 runs off of Darvish is pretty damn good for us, too."

Two screenshots (well, camera shots of the TV...)


Hello, Mr. Captain, sir.


Final score, with the Kokubo banner in the Hawks stands.


I would like to humbly submit that Kawasaki is equally responsible for Kokubo being game hero, as Kokubo doesn't get those RBIs if Kawasaki doesn't get on base, steal second, and run his butt off to home on the Kokubo hits. I mean, yeah, Kokubo did score the first Hawks run of the game, I'm just saying.

Tomorrow's game is on BS1 again, but I'm not sure whether I'll live blog or not.

Continued from part 1, though this is more like one of my typical photoposts with some more details about the game.

I spent the first inning and a half of the game in the camera well on the third base side, trying to very specifically take photos like this one of Lions starter Hideaki Wakui:



Because as usual, this was the closest I could get to the Lotte starter Naoyuki Shimizu:



It is kind of funny, though, that since Wakui changed his uniform number to 18 this year to accomodate Kazuhisa Ishii's 16, this game featured both team's "ace-number-wearing pitchers".

Speaking of guys named Shimizu, Takayuki Shimizu, who escaped the Evil Empire to come over to Seibu this past offseason, did pretty well in this game. But not only that, I was actually impressed with his spirit in the dugout -- he was yelling and cheering and clapping for his teammates the entire time (and was even out there running and stretching and clapping for the opening ceremonies as well). I've never been a Shimizu fan beyond the obligatory Urawa Gakuin nod, but even I have to admit he looks ninety times less evil in his new threads, if a hundred times more confused:



Also, the Seibu ouendan sang the old "Go West" ouenka for him like he had for the Giants -- and THEN also sang their new ouenka song for him. I thought that was really cool in a way. Sort of like how the Fighters are using "Sky High" as the at-bat music for Tomohiro Nioka.

Anyway, the game led off with this man, Yasuyuki Kataoka...



...running out a beautiful infield single that bounced to second, and then a few minutes later, getting himself tagged out trying to steal.



Whoops.

But besides that, nothing much happened in the time I spent in the camera well, sadly, and the score was still tied at 0-0 when I made my way up to the stands after the bottom of the second inning. Though, I did take a ton of photos anyway, so let me share a few more before I continue, just to be gratuitous:


More Wakui.


Ginjiro Sumitani, who I secretly hope will someday stab Toru Hosokawa to death in his sleep.


Hiram Bocachica (I have many more of him that I need to pass on to these guys I suppose.)


Yoshihito Ishii. Another Urawa Gakuin alum. Saitama Pride!


And because you know how obsessed I am with different stadiums and how they do "Please watch out for foul balls", here's the one at Lotte. Note that it says you can keep foul balls hit during the game...

Anyway, I apparently picked the right time to come watch the game and see Yasuyuki Kataoka run himself into yet another blunder leading off the third inning, this time successfully stealing second and then getting doubled off on a liner to Iguchi. Even better, though, was the Marines getting ahead in their half of the third -- with one out Daisuke Hayakawa walked, then Kazuya Fukuura singled him up to second, and though Nishioka struck out, Tadahito Iguchi came through as the cleanup batter and hit a ball out to right-center for a double that let both of the aforementioned runners score, 2-0. Wakui proceeded to hit Shoitsu Ohmatsu in the back with a pitch, and either as revenge or just a wacky coincidence, Tomoya Satozaki immediately lined out to the mound after that... right into Wakui's crotch. Somehow, he barely reacted at all, and the inning just kind of ended and he ran into the dugout with the rest of the team.

(I'm really not allowed to relay the conversation that took place after that, because it might embarrass the parents of the kids involved. Or in one case, it might embarrass the kid of the parent involved.)

Hiram Bocachica WALLOPED the ball waaaaay into the Seibu cheering section in the top of the 5th -- I actually thought for a minute that the ball might have left the stadium since I couldn't see it anymore. That made it 2-1, and after the fifth inning was complete, we were treated to some more fireworks! They looked really neat over the field:



And that's about when Seibu decided to launch some fireworks of their own.

You see, I've got this weird relationship with Toru Freaking Hosokawa, the Seibu catcher. For whatever reason -- be it karma, be it fate, be it that I'm not a Lions fan goddamnit, but somehow, my presence turns him from being a wimpy catcher that got his butt judo-tossed by Benny Agbayani, into a HUGE PILLAR OF STRENGTH LAUNCHING HOMERUNS LEFT AND RIGHT. I mean, to give you some perspective, Hosokawa's hit 3 grand slams in his career, and I've been there for two of them -- in the opposite team cheering section.

So it should be no surprise that as Naoyuki Shimizu started to get up towards 80 or 90 pitches, and the Lions were actually hitting him in the top of the 6th, there was a GG Satoh single, a Takayuki Shimizu single, and then Toru Hosokawa came to the plate, and I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, and it wasn't just from devouring a delicious Lotteria Bobby Burger during the 5th inning. I instinctively knew as the ball came to the plate and Hosokawa took a swing at it, that BLAM, it was going to go over the leftfield wall for a 3-run homer and turn the score to 4-2 Lions.

Naoyuki Shimizu came out of the game and was replaced by Yoshihiro Itoh, who's now in his second year with the Marines. Itoh originally hails from Higashi Fukuoka HS, the same school as Shuichi Murata and Yuki Yoshimura and Kensuke Tanaka and so on, though his path took him through Kokugakuin University and JR Tokai before he finally made it to the pro leagues. He also completely defies physics, I swear:



But he managed to get out of the inning without any more damage, and shut down the Lions in the 7th as well, striking out Okawari-kun and GG Satoh, even.

The Lions added another run in the top of the 8th. Old Man Takagi, a lefty, came out to pitch to Takayuki Shimizu, who bats lefty, only to find himself facing Shogo Akada, who bats whatever way suits him at the time. And at this time, he decided that hitting a double to right field was a good idea. And then Toru Freaking Hosokawa bunted him over to third, and Hiram Bocachica hit a huuuuuuge fly ball out to center... which was caught, but of course Akada scored on the sacrifice. 5-2. An astute observer might notice that all 5 of the Seibu runs were batted in by the 8th and 9th guys in the order, TFH and Bocachica.

Alex Graman closed out the game and it wasn't too hard for him to finish things out in an orderly fashion with the Lions winning 5-2.

I do, however, have one more fun thing from the stands to relate -- see, when you sit behind home plate, you never know who's going to be around. (It actually is kind of sucky in a way -- you can't say anything bad about any players, because for all you know, their family is sitting right there next to you, or in front of you, or whatever.) So in addition to the families that I *could* recognize and had met before, it also turned out that Lenn Sakata (who currently manages the Marines' minor-league team) and his wife Shane were sitting a few rows ahead of us.

As it turns out, Shane is amazingly friendly and nice, and she actually came up to talk to me, which surprised me to no end. She also blogs about Japan and various things, and is pretty crazy about baseball too (obviously), so we chatted for a while. She asked if I'd want to meet Lenn, and of course I was too shy and didn't want to bother him -- I know that it's got to be annoying having people come up to you during a game to bug you and all. But they ended up leaving early to go home, right after the 7th inning balloons, so...



I stumbled over having anything coherent to say to him, like "I go to watch your team up at Lotte Urawa ALL THE TIME!" but undoubtedly just sounded like another ridiculous baseball fan.

Wait a minute, I *AM* just another ridiculous baseball fan.

But that was pretty cool, and hopefully I'll catch them again at another game someday.

After the game ended, there was a sea of people emerging from the stadium, and I didn't even try to get a bus back to the station, but just walked up with the throng. However, I want to point out that Marines marketing is doing a great job of decorating Kaihin-Makuhari station -- in addition to big Marines player posters up and down all the platform escalators, they redid the little Marines area on the first floor with the 40th anniversary stuff:





Anyway, it was a disappointing loss on Opening Day, but the Marines managed to come back and win the next two games to take the weekend series from Seibu, which is more than I can say for the Fighters, who just got swept by Rakuten over the weekend. Ugh. As for me, I went to a Fighters-Marines ni-gun game on Saturday, which I'll post about in a bit, and then this coming week I'll be heading to the Tokyo Dome for more Marines-Fighters fun on Tuesday and Wednesday nights! Yay!

There's a lot to tell about the opening day game at Chiba Marine Stadium, but mostly, it's all going to come down to how a bunch of dedicated, crazed Lotte fans in the right field bleachers turned this...



into this:



Click the bottom one to see a larger version, which is really me trying to photoshop 5 images together, since I have no normal lens currently (mine broke a few weeks ago) and had to take photos of it in chunks. It's gigantic, but will give you an idea of the exact sentiment of the Lotte fans about the management's idea to make this Bobby's final season no matter what.

Let me back up a minute.

The day started when I arrived at Chiba Marine Stadium around 5:30ish; I was running late coming down from Tokyo. Getting off of the stadium bus and walking towards the gates, the first thing that greeted me was a group of people with clipboards and petitions and huge banners -- basically, people are trying to get as many fans as possible to sign a petition to keep Bobby in Chiba after the 2009 season.





The bottom photo, by the way, is Declan, who's actually a member of the Lotte ouendan, and is just as crazy as the rest of them are. (I met him last summer at the infamous Shunsuke The Lionhearted 16-0 game.) He explained a little bit about what was going on, and told me to make sure I aimed my camera at the bleachers when they put out the Marines Is My Life banner. He wasn't kidding.

I proceeded to convince the kankeisha folks that I was a reporter, and found my way onto the field, where I got to say hi to Bobby and to Frank Ramppen and Paul Pupo and the rest of the gang. Although things seemed a little bit different in mood than last year, Bobby was still in good spirits:



A little bit later a guy I hadn't seen before came out and asked Frank a question about pitch counts, and I realized it was Chase Lambin, so I basically made a "Dude! I really enjoyed your blog!" comment and congratulated him on making the team and all.

The ouendan started playing the Lambin cheer song at that point, and he was kind of like "Cool! What should I do?" and Frank suggested, "Go out and take a bow!" Instead, he went out and followed Bobby's example and started signing stuff for the fans in the field seats. A little bit later Gary Burnham also came out and did the same thing:



Tadahito Iguchi also went and signed stuff for a while. Those fans are lucky!

I hung out watching the antics in the dugout. A cameraman started coming by and shooting the players. Yoshihiro Itoh made a really goofy face and pose:



Whereas Brian Sikorski just worked on his bubble gum:



I was going to go upstairs at that point, but was diverted to go try to take photos of the pre-game ceremonies instead, which were about to start. I decided to go sneak into the third-base camera well for a good vantage point, though I had to first make my way through the Narashino High School marching band as well as several Lions players to do so. The kids were all lined up through the back hallway with their instruments, and were saying "konnichiwa!" to anyone who walked past them, including me. So I smiled back and said "Ganbatte!" They laughed.

Opening ceremonies were pretty crazy! The had the M-Splash dancing girls come out and dance, and there was a short video about the last 40 years with the team under the Lotte moniker, from Orions to Marines, from Tokyo Stadium to Kawasaki to Chiba, with various star players and events covered. And then there were fireworks, and the marching band kids played a song or two, including We Love Marines:



The band mascot and the girls with the cellos even waved Marines flags around.



After that, they started announcing the players on both teams, and the lineups. Only problem is, for some reason, the lights were NOT turned on in the stadium, and by this point it was pushing 6:15ish, which is already nighttime in Japan, so it was REALLY hard to see/photograph a lot of this stuff. I did get a few shots of the Lions as they came out, though:


(Kuriyama and Kataoka with manager Hisanobu Watanabe)


(Takeya "Okawari-kun" Nakamura high-fives people as he runs out to join the lineup)

I was in a dreadfully bad position to catch the Marines lineup, and could only vaguely get shots as the players came out to high-five Bobby. Here's Kazuya Fukuura, batting second, playing first base, and wearing high socks:



After announcing the lineups, they had a pretty neat ceremonial first pitch -- battery-mates from the inaugural 1969 Lotte Orions team!


Pitcher Masaaki Kitaru (木樽正明), who won the Pacific League ERA title in 1969, going 15-9 with a 1.72 ERA.


Takeo Daigo (醍醐猛夫), who caught in EVERY game of the 1969 season for the Lotte Orions, and whose career spanned about 5 name changes for the team. He's from the same part of Tokyo that I live in now, and went to Waseda Jitsugyo HS... two years ahead of some dude named Sadaharu Oh.

As appropriate, Kitaru threw a (decent for a 61-year-old guy!) pitch to home plate, and Tadahito Iguchi swung and missed it.

After that, the stadium started getting fired up for the game to really start. The ouendan started singing one of the Lotte fight songs, and the "Marines is my Life" banner shown at the top of this post was unfurled... and then, as the song ended, and the banner was rolled up... it transformed into an entire set of new banners, all in support of Bobby Valentine, as the ouendan changed their song from the Lotte fight song to a Bobby fight song. Oh, I can't really do it justice, just watch this video (filmed by someone else, forwarded to me by Mitch Murata). The transformation happens at about 2 minutes in, and it's really impressive.



I mean, just the sheer coordination it must have taken to set up all of those banners, and put them up under the Marines is My Life banner in like 2 minutes, and have everyone in on it -- that's nuts. That takes work and dedication. I'm proud to be a Fighters fan, you know, but I'm not sure we could ever pull off anything quite on the scale of this.

Anyway, all of this excitement and the game hadn't even started yet!

(I'm actually going to cut off this post at this point since I think the pre-game was the most important part of the day, and I'm already 24 hours behind on getting it out. I'll have some more photos from the game and a little bit of game report up soon enough, I hope.)