Marinerds, etc.

I apologize for this one, but I am in an internet cafe and running out of time, and I basically fly back to America in about 36 hours. So here is Saturday's Asia Series antics, basically told as a series of photos and a few videos.

I actually woke up on Saturday with a terrible sore throat and a headache. I spent the day basically running off of adrenaline and DayQuil, and only stayed at the Dome until an hour or so into the second game of the day, before going home to sleep for 12 hours.

Watched the afternoon game of the Seibu Lions vs. Tianjin Lions from the leftfield stands with Westbay and Matt, hence very few real usable photos. Not much to say about the game either, really. The best part was probably when Okawari-kun Nakamura got his first hit of the Asia Series -- and BOY what a hit -- it was a home run that nearly hit the ceiling of the Tokyo Dome, no joke, and after sailing in a huuuuuge arch over the field, it hit the back wall in the SECOND DECK of the leftfield stands and bounced back onto the field. Yikes. Later on Ginjiro also got a home run off the left-field foul pole, which was interesting to see, and made me understand better how it was possible to have a difficult call on those in the games on the first day, because even sitting 15 feet behind the foul pole I didn't quite see Ginjiro's ball hit it.

Seibu won 16-2, much to nobody's surprise in particular.


Tianjin outfielder Chao Wang.


Seibu outfielder Takumi Kuriyama.


The Seibu stands, viewed from the leftfield foul pole.


Okawari-kun hero interview.

We wandered around Jimbocho looking at old baseball book stores with Westbay and a friend of his, and after that Matt and I returned to the Dome for the evening game. I had no intention of staying there for more than an hour, to be honest, and mostly took photos and hung out.


This is what the Tokyo Dome looks like at night during Christmas lights season.


This is Fu-Hao Liu. He hit 3 home runs in the Asia Series, including two during this particular game, for a total of 6 RBIs in the game. Crazy.


Catcher Chih-Kang Kao, who hit back-to-back home runs with Liu in the 4th inning.


One of the many mascots this team had.


Cheng-Hua Kao with Yi-Cheng Tseng. Tseng was the interesting 3/4 delivery pitcher from Friday night who would also play a major part in Sunday's final game.


Tongyi starter Yueh-Ping Lin.


Wyverns starter Byung-Yong Chei. He was HUGE. It even said in the book that he weighs like 100 kg, which puts him around the same range as Okawari-kun.


The Uni-President Lions ouendan. They were nuts. There were also a ton of Japanese people supporting them.


The nice people playing the brass instruments for the Lions ouendan.


And an abundance of cheer girls and mascots, of course. See? They actually DO have a Lion in there. Honest.

And here are a few videos of the Uni-President Lions ouendan...


Doing the Seibu running chance theme. At least, they use the same tune. Note the dude in the Seibu jersey who is DOING the Seibu running theme.


I swear this is like the Graduation March or whatever. Quite surreal.


One of their more generic cheers, but I thought it was neat how even in Chinese they had the "GO! GO! GO!" at the end.

Here's what's interesting. I only stayed until the 4th inning, so I didn't get to see it unfold, but the Lions beat the Wyverns 10-4.

What that meant is that actually, due to the tie-breaking rules -- based on how many runs the team gave up -- the Wyverns would not advance to the finals. All three teams were 2-1 in the tournament, but Seibu gave up 7 runs, Uni-President gave up 10, and SK gave up 13. Oops. SK could have lost the game 6-4 and still advanced to the finals, but that homerun by Liu pretty much clinched the spot for the Taiwanese squad.

And onward they went.

I won't have time to post about the final game for a while if at all, so I'll just say that it was CLOSE, it was 0-0 for most of the game until a walk and a sayonara double in the bottom of the 9th for Seibu. Seriously, crazy close game. Congrats to Seibu, but congrats even moreso to the Uni-President Lions for not only surviving their own league but then putting in such a great showing in this tournament, and to their fans as well.

When last we left our heroes, we were getting lunch between the two games on Day 2.

I returned to the Dome before the rest of the gang, because I was meeting up with one of my friends from the Fighters ouendan. He wanted to come see Taiwan's team play; if the Giants had been in this game he was seriously going to go sit in left field and cheer for them, but since it was Seibu, he decided to sit in right field with me. I think in reality he thought the Taiwan fans were just really entertaining to watch, which is quite true.

He also brought Krispy Kreme donuts. Apparently they just opened a new location down in Kawasaki.

Eventually we reassembled most of our gang in right field; Matt and Simon were there at the game's beginning, and Pau joined us a bit later and Simon's dad a bit after that.

As for my Fighters friend, Simon had brought extra Seibu flags and offered them to us. I gladly accepted because I like waving things around and yelling, but my friend steadfastly refused, claiming that as a Fighters fan he could cheer for Japan but not for Seibu.

(Instead, we spent a while getting trash-talked at by Pau about the recent Fighters trade, which became official that morning. Our basic attitude has been "NIOKA. DO NOT WANT.")

Anyway, this game was also really close. The first three innings were scoreless both ways, with Seibu getting a few more baserunners than Uni-President. Infact they even had two runners out there with no outs in the third inning, but Kuriyama utterly failed to sac bunt and Hirao mostly failed to get a hit, so the runners were stranded.

Finally, in the top of the 4th, Uni second baseman Sen Yang led off with a double to right, and advanced on a groundout to the pitcher. Jiminez Brito hit a monster shot to center field, which Shogo Akada caught near the warning track, but it was more than enough to score Yang, who tagged up and ran in to make it 1-0. Kuo-Ching Kao followed that up with a double to left, but Tai-Chi Kuo struck out to end the threat.

So in the bottom of the 4th the Seibu Lions responded in kind. Yoshihito Ishii hit a double out to center, and Tomoaki Satoh grounded out attempting to bunt, moving Ishii to third. Hiroyuki Ohshima singled to center and that scored Ishii to tie the game at 1-1. Then Ginjiro Sumitani -- who hadn't gotten a hit all through the Japan Series, but seemed to be hitting his stride in the Asia Series -- doubled to center. Ohshima attempted to score from first, and got NAILED at the plate by the throw in from center. Oops. Two out. Shogo Akada then chose that moment to actually HIT THE BALL though, and he ALSO doubled to center, which scored Ginjiro, making it 2-1.

Which is where the score would end up remaining for the rest of the game.

The game was actually INSANELY short -- it did go the full 9 innings, but it was over around 8:35pm. Kishi struck out 10 batters in 8 innings, and Hoshino and Onodera finished ou the 9th inning for him.

As for Taiwan, their starter Wei-Lun Pan lasted the first 6 innings before being replaced by Yi-Chen Tseng, who had a really interesting delivery, kind of a 3/4ths motion that reminded me of the Fighters pitcher Tateyama. When Tseng came in the next two batters immediately grounded back to the mound, even.

We spent a while being amused by the Taiwanese cheering section; I missed Thursday afternoon's game so this was my first time seeing them. They did a whole variety of typical high school marching band songs, like Popeye and Old McDonald and Johnny Comes Marching Home and whatnot.

Also, we were sitting in the same exact place from Thursday, which meant all of the same nutso Lions fans were right behind us doing the Macarena dance and cheering for Mizuta when he came in to pinch-run and whatnot.

A few photos from this game:


Lions mascots in the field. Leo did 16 back flips. (My friend counted, then said something to the effect of, "Take THAT, Doala!")


I really wanted a better picture of the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions away uniforms -- the home ones have the Tongyi logo but the away look kind of like Oakland uniforms except that they say 7-Eleven on the front. Alas.


The fans sitting behind us had a variety of signs. I liked this one.


In the midst of the Blue Blue and Blue flags.


Final score. Shogo Akada was game hero for that go-ahead run, though honestly, I would have gone with Kishi as game hero... I'm biased, though.

I must admit that I went into the Asia Series with an attitude of, "I spent 4000 yen for this Passport, and I'm going to get the most I can out of it." Since the Japan representative was not a team I normally cheer for, I ended up treating the series mostly as a social event. Which, to some extent, it was.

For the first game on Friday, the matinee featuring Korea's SK Wyverns taking on China's Tianjin Lions, I attempted to meet up with Michael Westbay when I arrived at the dome. I was about 15 minutes late to the game; he told me to join him in the seats behind home plate... of course, you can't actually GO there with a jiyuu passport, so I gave up and found a slightly better vantage point -- first row behind the SK Wyverns dugout.

Eventually, me and my camera were joined by Westbay, Matt, and Simon, and we watched Korea pretty much stomp the Chinese representatives into the ground. Eun-Beom Song started for the Wyverns, and Wei Chen for the Lions.

The score held at 0-0 for two innings, and then the Wyverns just broke open the game in the top of the 3rd, batting around the entire order and scoring 7 runs in the process, stealing bases at will.

After that the Chinese team sort of seemed to lose concentration on the game and not only made terrible fielding errors but even simple baserunning errors. In the bottom of the 4th, there was a runner at first with one out, and the batter hit a pop fly out to left field. The runner had already gotten past second base, so when the ball was caught he started sort of jogging/walking back to first base. We were all like "DUDE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, RUN RUN RUN" but he didn't, so the Wyverns left fielder threw in the ball and the runner was tagged out.

The game was called after 7 innings on the mercy rule with a score of 15-0. Jae-Hyun Kim just added insult to injury by blasting a home run into the empty right-field seats in the top of the 7th.

To be fair, Tianjin's players have some potential -- some great outfield arms there and a lot of speed. They just sort of gave up way too easily.

Some photos:


Wyverns starter Eun-Beom Song.


Lions starter Wei Chen.


SK Wyverns cheering section in the infield.


Jae-Hyun Kim hits a huge pop foul in the 3rd inning.


Lions catcher Min Ren goes after the foul ball and gets it.


Wyverns catcher Sang Ho Chung.


Lions pitcher Wan-Jun Zhang.


Wyverns pitcher Song is airborne for some reason.


Zhi-Cheng Liu strikes out.


Pitcher Eun-Beom Song again.


Wyverns relief pitcher Byung-Doo Jun. (I don't know why, but the lady sitting a row behind us who also had a huge camera was really excited when he came out to pitch.)


Final lopsided score.


Song was the game hero, apparently.

We were kicked out of the stadium after that, and adjourned to have lunch with Aaron from EWC and his boss. I learned many interesting things, none of which I can blog about.

And then back to the Dome for the night game, which will be in the next entry.

I went to the evening game of the Asia Series tonight. The Korean champion SK Wyverns beat the Japan champion Seibu Lions 4-3.



In all honesty, I don't have a lot to say about this game. And I only have ten minutes or so to say it anyway, so here goes, in points:

- If you have a jiyuu passport for the Series, you will have to change it in for an actual passport card, at one of the ticket selling booths, NOT at the entrance. So go do that first.

- Security is heightened. You will be scanned by a metal detector upon entering. Leave extra time to wait in long lines, or show up early if you really want to get good seats in jiyuuseki (the unreserved seats).

- Speaking of jiyuuseki, apparently they are not opening the upper decks except MAYBE for the final game? Tonight I was basically told "it's not going to be crowded enough to make us open the second floor." I think the ticketing scheme which involved the second floor as unreserved seats for Japan games also assumed there would be a popular enough Japanese team to fill those seats (ie, Giants).

- The Lions are not playing a lot of their normal top-line guys. Tonight's game basically had Kuriyama, Okawari-kun, and maybe Gotoh, of their usual lineup... it was Akada, Kuriyama, Hirao, Nakamura, Gotoh, Tomoaki Satoh, Ishii, Ginjiro, and Mizuta. Yeah. We were all like "who the hell is Mizuta?" but he actually had some huge cheering fans near where we were sitting anyway. I kinda wondered what happened to Haruki Kurose, but whatever.

- Okawari-kun Nakamura struck out three times and walked once. Sheesh.

- Kwang-Hyun Kim started for the SK Wyverns. He's that kid who not only beat the Dragons last year at the age of 19 (now he's 20!) but also kicked butt in the Olympics and was his league's MVP this year and so on. I don't think he actually got the victory tonight though because he only went 4.2 innings.

- Kazuyuki Hoashi started for the Lions. He wasn't bad but he gave up two identical homeruns that pretty much went right to the left-field corner, which accounted for 3 of the 4 runs the Wyverns scored. The second one hit the foul pole and the first, I actually lost it in the lights so I'm not sure what happened, Nabe-Q argued it for a bit but it stood.

- There were a lot of strikeouts by both sides.

- We realized there has never been an Asia Series without a Lions team. 2005 and 2006 had Samsung, last year had Uni-President, and this year has three of them. The Four-Lions Series dream is still alive, of course.

- There were NOT a lot of people there. Official attendance appears to be 9277. I wonder if it'll be any better over the weekend -- maybe Sunday's final game, but who knows. This was a Thursday night, but usually Korea draws a bigger crowd than most others.

- Oh, and the Lions fans still did a lot of their usual antics. I joined in singing and stuff actually, but not in running back and forth in the stands. Maybe tomorrow :)

Honestly, the upshot is -- I think if the Lions had their top guys out there, they would have handily defeated the Wyverns, actually. But they were basically playing their farm team, and that's gotta hurt. I have to wonder whether they will actually manage to win this series or not -- tomorrow's game against the Uni-President-7-11-whatever-the-heck Lions will pretty much decide their fate, I think. If Japan doesn't make it to the final game, that'll be... bizarre, to say the least.

I'm going to try to make it to both games tomorrow. Shame I overslept this afternoon's game, actually, because apparently China's Lions ALMOST defeated Taiwan's Lions -- it was apparently 4-3 in the bottom of the 9th with two outs and then Taiwan hit a sayonara grand slam to make it 7-4. Man.

A man whose last outing was 8 perfect innings walked the leadoff batter, the best double-play combo in Japan made no double plays, two former Hiroshima Carp pitchers lost the game for the Korean side, and two guys named Lee hit two-run homers for two different teams. Despite what the scoreboard shows, it was a close game all along and it was never entirely clear who was going to win until the final ball of the game landed in leftfielder Ueda's glove, and Chunichi won the game 6-5.


Your 2007 Asia Champions... viewed from the upper deck.

Let's take a moment to review what happened in this year's series.

China got completely demolished, but at least this year it didn't get demolished until the late innings in most cases. They were actually up 4-1 on Taiwan in the first game before eventually losing 9-5 with Taiwan scoring 6 runs in the 7th inning, and didn't even allow a Chunichi baserunner until the 4th inning of the third game, again only down 3-1 until a 6-run 7th inning. Sadly, the only game I saw of theirs was Friday afternoon, where they had the mercy rule called on them as Korea won 13-0 in 7 innings. They made 3 errors and were just sort of fundamentally Bad At Baseball in that game; it was sad to watch.

Taiwan also got completely demolished by Korea in another mercy-ended game, this one 13-1 (starter Peter Munro got rocked for 8 runs), but other than that they weren't bad. They only lost 4-2 to the Dragons, and they beat China, although everyone beat China, so that's not saying much.

The Dragons lost their first game of the Asia Series to the Wyverns, becoming the first Japanese team to lose a game in the Asia Series ever. They beat China and Taiwan, but with nowhere near the same margin the Wyverns did. Infact, I'm not entirely clear on how the rules worked for the round-robin format, but if the Wyverns hadn't completely clobbered the Lions there was a chance that Chunichi wouldn't even make it to the finals. I wonder if the Wyverns thought of that. My guess is they didn't.

The Wyverns kicked ass. That's really all there is to it. I went to Friday afternoon's game with Westbay and saw them play and we kept saying, "These guys are GOOD." They played some really fundamentally good baseball on all levels of the game.

I went to Sunday's game with Pau (a Hanshin fan who I've dragged to a bunch of games that have nothing to do with Hanshin), and his friend Martin (who hails from Germany, where they don't actually HAVE baseball). They had beer and sembei; I had cola and a katsu sandwich.

We found pretty decent seats up on the first-base side in the upper deck. The entire second floor and all of the outfield was unreserved seats. The Chunichi side of the outfield was completely packed, but that was about it. There were plenty of people in the upper deck but I wouldn't have called it crowded. And the Wyverns side of the stadium was pretty sparse; the overall attendance was reported as being 21,091, in a Tokyo Dome which seats around 50,000.


Hey, who ordered the marching band?

One majorly obnoxious thing during this game was that they had announcers in both English and Japanese. It makes sense in a way, because between China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, the common second language that most people will study is English. And even though all the places use kanji for writing, the pronunciation is really different among them.

The problem is, this announcer kept saying Japanese names in a way that made me want to kill him. I'm surprised at that. "The next batter IZZZ. Ma-sa-HEE-ko Mo-REE-no." "The catchaaaa, MotoNObu TaniSHEEEEge!!!"

Another Englishy point of amusement for the evening was the way they'd announce to watch out for foul balls. Now, keep in mind, EVERY game in Japan has an announcer saying "Be careful of foul balls." in Japanese whenever a foul goes into the stands. But this time it'd not only say the nice normal Japanese announcement but the English announcer would also say, in his weird voice, "Watch out for foul balls." And the kicker is that they'd added an English line to the scoreboard display...


Watch out for balls!

Sure enough, a foul ball actually came into our section in the 9th inning. And boy, were we watching for it!

Anyway, the starters for this game were Kenny Rayborn for the Wyverns, and Daisuke Yamai for the Dragons. If you don't know who Kenny Rayborn is, he's had an interesting last few years wandering through Asia. After failing to make the Cleveland Indians team in 2005, he ended up playing for the Hiroshima Carp. Then he headed off to Taiwan for the 2006 season, playing for the La New Bears, who ended up being the league champions, visiting Japan for the 2006 Asia Series and narrowly losing to the Fighters in the final. In 2007 he moved up from Taiwan to Korea, playing for the SK Wyverns, who became the KBO league champions and visited Japan yet again for this year's Asia Series. One wonders if he'll somehow manage to play in the 2008 Asia Series as well.

Daisuke Yamai pitched 8 perfect innings of baseball last time he took the mound, in the fifth and decisive game of this year's Japan Series. He wears his sunglasses at night.

Full starting lineups:

Chunichi Dragons          SK Wyverns
----------------          ----------
Araki 2B                  KW Jeong SS
Ibata awesome             DH Cho LF
Dragonbutt 3B             JH Kim DH
Norihiro 1B               HJ Lee 1B
Lee RF                    JY Lee RF
Kazuki "DH"               JH Park CF
Tanishige C               KB Chung 2B
Kouji Nakamura LF         KO Park C
Fujii CF                  J Choi 3B

Yamai P                   Rayborn P

Anyway, the Dragons started off this game with a whimper instead of a bang. Araki and Ibata quickly grounded out to start off the first inning, and then Morino hit a high pop fly behind the plate that Korean catcher Kyung-Oan Park easily caught.

Yamai, who'd been perfect in his last outing, pretty much immediately walked leadoff batter Keun-woo Jeong. Jeong stole second on the third strike of Dong-Hwa Cho's strikeout, and Tanishige's throw was a bit wide of Ibata covering second, so Jeong made it to third on the play. Jae-Hyun Kim also struck out, but then Ho-Joon Lee walked. With two outs and runners at the corners, Jin-Young Lee hit a clean single to right, scoring Jeong and moving the other Lee to second. 1-0. Jae-Hong Park hit a grounder up the left side past a diving Morino for another single, scoring the first Lee. 2-0. Kyoung-Bae Chung hit a pop fly out to second after that, but the Wyverns were off to a quick lead. 2R, 2H, 1E, 2LOB.

As a joke, I yelled "KAZUKI!!!!! YOU SUCK!!!!!" when Kazuki Inoue was up to bat in the 2nd. He responded by hitting the ball into the first few rows of seats in left field. 2-1.

The Wyverns got off to a quick two outs in the bottom of the second, before Jeong walked again. Fortunately, he also tried to steal second during DH Cho's at-bat, and Tanishige totally read it and nailed him at second, Ibata getting the tag in early and cleanly. Boom.

Between the second and third innings, for whatever reason, the Dragons cheerleader girls danced to a song called "Jumpstart My Heart". I wouldn't have remembered this if not for the crazy Engrish announcer saying "The Dragons cheer girls, will now dance, and they will jump start, your heart!"

Much like the Wyverns, the Dragons also got off to two quick outs in the top of the third, with Kouji and Fujii both striking out. Araki singled to right, but then... a pitch or two into Ibata's at-bat, completely out of nowhere, Araki just sort of started running to second, before Rayborn had even delivered the pitch. Predictably, he was thrown out at second by a mile. We're not really sure what happened there; our best guess was that he missed a signal or something.

The bottom of the third was a 1-2-3 inning (or a K-9-9 as the case may be). Nori Nakamura walked in the top of the 4th, KB Chung singled in the bottom of the 4th, and that catches us up on excitement until the 5th.

I didn't yell anything about Kazuki sucking that time, so he started off with a strikeout. Then Tanishige was hit by a pitch -- and it looked pretty bad for a bit there. The Dragons are kind of screwed if anything happens to Tanishige, but he got up and walked to first after a bit. Kouji singled to right, moving Tanishige to second, and then Fujii hit a ball way out, out to center... for a double! Tanishige scored and Kouji moved to third. 2-2. The Dragons oendan started the "uchimakure" chance music, and Araki grounded out to third after that, but Kouji Nakamura managed to score on the play. 3-2. Ibata walked after that, and Rayborn was pulled so lefty Kwang-Hyun Kim could pitch to the lefty-hitting Morino (and Lee and Kazuki).

I held up my Morino towel and yelled really loud "MORINO! MORINO!" along to the chance music, and he did a pretty good job of wasting pitches -- around 10 of them or so -- before eventually striking out to end the inning. Still, the Dragons had taken the lead.

The Wyverns went down in their half of the 5th, and it was back to the Dragons quickly enough. Nori Nakamura walked, and then BYUNG-GYU LEE HIT A HOME RUN!! Blam! So much for the lefty theory. 5-2. After Kazuki popped out to left field, there was another pitching change, righty Woong-Chun Cho coming in to pitch for the Wyverns. He struck out Tanishige and got Kouji Nakamura to ground out to short.

In the interim and during the pitching change, though, along with singing Moeyo Dragons, the oendan group also started playing the Ochiai-kantoku cheer song several times over. Normally it'd end with two chants of "Misero Ochiai Nippon Ichi!!" but this time instead it ended with "Misero Ochiai Asia Ichi!!" which was pretty funny.

Jae-Hyun Kim wanted to make it clear that he was NOT messing around here. Leading off the bottom of the 6th, he took a 1-0 pitch and hit one of the most beautiful home runs I've ever seen in my life. It just left his bat on a nice clean flat hard line drive and landed in the right-field stands a few split seconds later. There was no arc to the ball's flight, it just went upwards at a slight angle on a straight line until it hit the seats a few rows off the field with a loud thud. I realize some people love watching a big pop fly home run go sailing out into the stratosphere, but there's really something to be said for efficiency. 5-3. Unfortunately for him the Wyverns didn't follow it up with anything beyond a single from Jin-Young Lee.

Fujii led off the top of the 7th with a single, his bat flying one way and the ball flying another. This led to another pitching change, with Eun-Beom Song replacing CW Cho on the mound. Once the game got going again, as a joke, I yelled "Hashire Fujii!!!" and sure enough, a little while later the oendan also started yelling "hashire hashire fuji-i!" So, of course, that meant lots of throws to first base to try to hold him. Araki hit a pop fly out to center and Fujii nearly got himself doubled off, but didn't. After that, Fujii did finally take off for second, and the pitcher Cho chucked the ball into centerfield by accident. Oops. So Fujii made it to third, and Ibata ultimately walked, Morino came up to the plate with runners at the corners again, and predictably, there was another pitching change.


Notice the scoreboard is actually in English. Also, Dragonbutt.

Lefthander Deuk-Yum Ka came out to pitch for the Wyverns. The Chunichi oendan started the tune of the "nerai uchi" chance music, but sadly Dragonbutt ended up hitting a pop fly out to right. Nori Nakamura hit a pop fly out to short and that was it for the half inning.

I didn't catch exactly what happened to the Wyverns third baseman, but during his at-bat, Jeong Choi somehow ended up down on the ground and the loudspeaker had the following announcement in English (but not Japanese): "The game is PAUSED! Jeong Choi is RECEIVING medical attention!" We also thought this was funny, like "Wow, so they say it in English for our benefit, but they figure that Japanese people are smart enough to look at the field and notice all the trainers around him and figure out that he's getting medical attention with no announcement?"

Between the 7th and 8th innings, the Chunichi cheer girls did another song and dance, but this time for some reason Doala was up in the upper deck also being all mascot-like! So I ran over to see Doala, just like approximately 3829483298 other Dragons fans up there.




Doala sighting!

The top of the 8th was a 9-K-K inning for the Dragons again, with the Wyverns making the "ok, we're done with the lefties" requisite pitching change yet again, taking out DY Ka after Kazuki's at-bat and putting in Mike Romano, who struck out Tanishige.

Daisuke Yamai pitched a pretty respectable 7 innings on 114 pitches, walking 3, striking out 6, and giving up 5 hits, with one HR, 2 earned runs. So, he came out of the game and Shinya Okamoto took over to pitch the bottom of the 8th.

Okamoto got off to a nice start, striking out a pinch-hitting Jae-Sang Park, and getting Jae-Hyun Kim to pop out to right for two quick outs. But then he walked Ho-Joon Lee, and no sooner had I gotten a text message from my friend Jeff saying "I have a bad feeling about this..." Jin-Young Lee got a pitch he liked and COMPLETELY BLASTED IT INTO THE UPPER DECK IN RIGHT FIELD for a game-tying 2-run homer that probably would have gone all the way to Korakuen station had there not been a wall in the way. 5-5. Lee was the best hitter on the Wyverns that day, going 3-for-4 with that blast.

I don't have a better way of explaining exactly how freaking huge this home run was except to show a picture:


Jin-Young Lee's homerun wuz here!

It ricocheted off the empty seats into a completely stunned Chunichi cheering section in right field.

Okamoto gave up two more hits and Ochiai finally came out like "Ok, enough of that crap," and put Yoshihiro Suzuki out there, who struck out catcher Kyung-Oan Park to end the inning.

Well then.

I warned Pau that the 9th inning was going to be a LOT of chance music, and sure enough, it was. We just kept cycling through the three chance themes ("uchimakure", "nerai uchi", and "gogo") for the whole inning.

And it apparently worked. Ueda pinch-hit for Kouji Nakamura and led off with a walk. Fujii, showing bunt the entire way... bunted. Ueda moved to second, and Araki hit a bounder back to the mound. Two outs and things were looking a little grim, but didn't I mention several thousand times in the last month how awesome Ibata is? He proved his awesomeness once more by singling to center, and Ueda ran for his life and managed to beat the throw home! 6-5. I got a text from Anthony saying "You know, your boy is the only one who hasn't been on base tonight," at the end of the 7th, so it was slightly gratifying that they intentionally walked Morino in the 9th to get to Norihiro, who obliged by grounding out to third base.

We were also informed that people should not use noisemakers at all for cheering after 10pm out of respect to the neighborhood.


For some reason they DIDN'T repeat this one in English.

As you can see from that shot, Hitoki Iwase, one of the best closers in Japan in recent history, came out to pitch the bottom of the 9th inning. A strikeout, a groundout to third, and a pop fly to left field later, the CHUNICHI DRAGONS WERE THE WINNERS OF THE ASIA SERIES!!!!!




Yay!

Martin and Pau pretty much left right after the final pitch of the game, but I stuck around to see everything afterwards. First, the streamers flew from the right field stands, and of course the teams lined up for a big awards ceremony, where Ochiai was presented with some stuff, the other teams' managers were presented with some stuff, and Hirokazu Ibata was not only named the game hero for that final game, but was also named as the MVP for the entire damn Asia Series! Like I said, he's awesome.

The Dragons players (and Doala, of course) posed with the Asia Series flags and pennants, and then they did a parade around the field, waving to everyone in the stands and showing off the flags, and that was that.

The Dragons fans weren't leaving, though -- we sang another round of Moeyo Dragons and all of the player cheer songs, ending with another "Misero Ochiai Asia Ichi!", and the fans were still out there, so Doala came out to the field and started leading cheers and doing cartwheels and flips and stuff, and that was about when I gave up and went home, being as it was almost 11pm and I knew I still had a 40-minute trip to make.

Actually, I don't know how many people noticed it, but Byung-Kyu Lee snuck off from the Dragons team contingent and went over to the Korean fan side of the stadium to talk to a whole bunch of people, too. It must be sort of strange for him to have to play against the Korean team.

So, just a few more pictures and I'll be done with this post, which has taken me three days to write, seriously, and I'm sure nobody actually bothered reading all of it anyway, but that's okay.


I was apparently sitting in the Araki Fan Club section. Who knew?


But I will forever love Morino first. Ibata second, of course.


Doala sighting from before the game, as he tries to dance with the cheer girls.


More Doala-stalking before the game.

And that's it!

Pretty exciting stuff! I'm really glad I got a chance to see some other Asian baseball teams play, and I'm also really happy for the Dragons (but sad that all their parades and fanfests are on Saturday and thus I can't go).

Ok, even though I can't watch this one, and Westbay's actually AT the game so he isn't broadcasting it or anything, I'm going to stay up to see what happens, follow the Gameday tickers online and translate them here. Let's go Fighters!

Also, um, I love these people, who are organizing a "please stay, Ogasawara!" signature/etc campaign. It's the exact sort of thing I'd do if I lived in Sapporo.

                     

Huang CF                   Morimoto CF
Lu RF                      K. Tanaka 2B
Lin SS                     Ogasawara 1B
C.F. Chen DH               Inaba RF
Shih 3B                    Kimoto 3B
Zheng LF                   Inada DH
Pan 1B                     Tsuruoka C
F.M. Chen C                Konta LF
Chiang 2B                  Kaneko SS

---------------            ----------------
Hsu (2-4, 2.94)            Darvish (12-5, 2.89)

I'm following the game from here and here. It's a little depressing that the Fighters don't actually have a ticker up on their own site, but oh well. If anyone's in Japan and feels like broadcasting or slingboxing the game to me, that'd be great :)

First inning, top: Huang led off the game by striking out swinging. Lu followed that by striking out swinging as well. And... Lin struck out too. Yay Darvish! He threw 14 pitches that inning.

First inning, bottom: Hichori grounded out to short. Kensuke lofted a high pitch for a pop-out to center. Ogasawara hit a hard liner up the first base line but it was snagged by Bears first baseman Pan. Hsu threw a meager 7 pitches that inning.

Second inning, top: Chin-Feng Chen struck out swinging on a low outside slider. Shih struck out swinging on a slider as well. And then for a change, Zheng grounded out to short. Man, for a minute I thought Darvish was going to strike out everyone tonight. He threw 13 pitches that inning for 27 through two.

Second inning, bottom: Inaba grounded out to second. Kimoto hit a "half liner" fly out to short. Naoto Inada got the first hit of the game when he smacked the ball down the third-base line into left field for a double! Unfortunately, Tsuruoka hit a fly ball in foul territory which was caught near first base, stranding Inada at second. Doh. Hsu threw 11 pitches that inning for a total of 18. Still no score.

Third inning, top: Pan continues the trend by striking out swinging on another slider. Feng-Min Chen hits a fly ball in foul territory on the first-base side, Ogasawara making the catch. Chiang struck out swinging. Darvish threw 11 pitches that inning for a total of 38.

Third inning, bottom: Konta grounded to short but Lin booted the ball for an error. He immediately made up for that when Kaneko grounded to short though, firing to Chiang at second and Pan at first for the double play. Hichori grounded back to the mound and that was the inning. Hsu threw 6 pitches that inning for a depressingly low 24 through three.

Fourth inning, top: Huang curbed the no-hitter thoughts with a single to left. Lu bunted him to second. Lin took a low outside 3-1 pitch and walked. Chin-Feng Chen struck out looking at a fastball right down the middle. Shih struck out swinging to end the inning, stranding Huang and Lin at second and first. Darvish has struck out 9 batters through 4 innings -- no joke -- and has thrown 56 pitches, 18 that inning. Still no score.

Fourth inning, bottom: Kensuke Tanaka hit a pop fly out to center. Ogasawara grounded out to second. Inaba also hit a pop fly to center. At least they finally made Hsu throw a couple of pitches, 14 that inning, but still a meager 38 through four. Come on, guys! There hasn't been a full count yet this game on either side.

Fifth inning, top: Zheng flies out to second. Pan hits the ball up the first-base line, where Ogasawara extracts revenge for that play in the first inning. Feng-Min Chen hit a fly ball towards first which Ogasawara caught for the third out. Darvish didn't strike out anyone that inning and he threw 14 pitches for a total of 70 through five.

Fifth inning, bottom: WOW! A FULL COUNT! Kimoto gets to a 3-2 count and hits the sixth pitch to second, grounding out. Naoto Inada, who I had originally thought about jokingly putting quotes around "DH" for, singles to center, and with that second hit is still the only Fighters batter to get a hit at all! Centerfielder Huang makes an error getting the ball in and Inada slides headfirst into second base. Tsuruoka grounds out to short, and Inada can't advance to third. Konta then strikes out swinging to end the chance. Doh.

Three notes here: 1) Hsu threw 16 pitches that inning for a total of 54 through five; 2) apparently he made a good guts pose at the end of the inning; and 3) Konta was his first strikeout victim. Hsu 1, Darvish 9. Yeeeeeah.

Sixth inning, top: Chiang flies out to left. Huang grounds out to third. Lu grounds out to second. I guess Darvish gave up on striking out everything in sight, but that was 9 pitches for the inning, 79 through six. Still no score.

My internet chose this exact moment to totally flake out on me for like fifteen minutes. It's been sporadically doing this all weekend, and it's REALLY annoying, but I have to remind myself that back in the old days, people would get together by the thousands to stand in front of mechanical scoreboards in a shop window downtown or something, and following a Japanese baseball game was absolutely unheard of. So it could be much much worse.

Sixth inning, bottom: My internet dropped JUST as I saw that Kaneko hit a single to left-center! Hichori bunted him over to second. Kensuke apparently pounded a rather nice ball way the hell out to left field but Zheng made a running catch to get it. Fortunately Hichori got back to the bag. Ogasawara was unsurprisingly intentionally walked, and unfortunately, Inaba struck out to end the inning, stranding Kaneko and Ogasawara on base. Hsu threw 16 pitches that inning for 70 through six.

Seventh inning, top: Lin struck out but the pitch got away from Tsuruoka, so it was called a passed ball and Lin got to first base safely. Fortunately then Chin-Feng Chen grounded the ball back to Darvish who threw to second to catch Lin, and Chen was out at first to complete the double play. Shih hit a fly ball to second to end the inning. Darvish threw 8 pitches that inning for 87 through seven. They have a comment here about how Chen is now 0-for-7 against the Japan teams, though he was 6-for-8 against Korea and China.

Seventh inning, bottom: Ooooh, a pitching change. James Fiore comes in for the Bears. Hsu's line: 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K, 70 pitches. Not bad, really.

Kimoto grounded out to third, but they made an error on the play and he was safe at first. Inada, rather than getting another single, bunted Kimoto over to second. During Tsuruoka's at-bat there was a wild pitch and Kimoto advanced to third, setting the stage for Tsuruoka to get an RBI single to right! Fighters score, 1-0! I guess that pissed off Fiore because he struck out Konta and Kaneko after that, though at least Konta got up to a full count first. Fiore threw 20 pitches that inning.

Eighth inning, top: Iiyama comes in to play third for the Fighters. Zheng starts the inning off by walking. I wondered why SportsNavi was hanging, but it appears that a pitching change is in order, and Hisashi Takeda is replacing Darvish on the mound, and Satoshi Nakajima is replacing Shinya Tsuruoka at the plate. Darvish's line: 7 IP, 1 H, 2 BB, 10 K, 92 pitches. HOLY CRAP!

Hisashi gets off to a good start by striking out Chung-Wei Pan. Great, my internet is flaking out again. Unfortunately, Feng-Min Chen also gets a single to right, advancing Zheng to second. Chin-Te Yu comes in to pinch run for Zheng as Chiang grounds into a 4-6-3 double play. WHEW. Hisashi threw 9 pitches that inning. Score is still 1-0 Fighters, runners stranded on first and second.

Eighth inning, bottom: Ahhh, we're back to our old tricks, of course. Hichori leads off by singling to left, and Kensuke bunts him to second. Ogasawara gets up to a full count before being unintentionally walked. Inaba struck out and Iiyama grounded out to short, first baseman Pan stretching out to get the quick throw. Fiore threw 23 pitches that inning for a total of 43 in his two innings. (That's more than Hsu threw in 4 innings, heh.)

Ninth inning, top: Micheal took the mound for the Fighters and struck out Long-Yi Huang and a pinch-hitting Hsiao-Wei Huang. Lin hit a fly ball out to second, Kensuke caught the ball, Micheal made his standard guts pose, and that was the game.

Fighters win, 1-0!


(photo from Nikkan Sports)

Of course, they won 1-0 on an unearned run. That's pretty crazy -- what a close game! You have to wonder how different it would have been if Seguignol, or maybe even Shinjo, had been able to be there.

Darvish was the game hero (and apparently the Series Hero as well).

Congratulations to both teams though, it sounds like it was a very well pitched and defended game on both sides.

Last year a total of 37k people showed up for the final game, whereas this year it was only 24k. I could guess that the extra 13k people last year could have been attributed to Lotte's Seung-Yeop Lee playing against the Lions, his former team in Korea, though it might also have just been a matter of the Marines having a larger fan base in Tokyo than the Fighters do.

Japanball article here.