4/9/2004
4/9/2004
| Igawa Perfect for Seven, Ends Up With Three Hitter to Whip Chunichi 6-0; Vargas Ejected | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture Hanshin
Tigers lefthander Kei Igawa flirted with history Friday at Koshien
Stadium, as he didn't allow any Chunichi Dragons hitter to reach base for seven innings. However, after getting ahead 1-2 to the Nagoya Team's rightfielder, Kosuke Fukudome, he left a fastball over the plate and Fukudome swatted it into center to spoil what could have been the first perfecto in Tigers annals. Igawa ultimately surrendered three knocks in what ended as a complete game shutout and a 6-0 Hanshin victory. Martin Vargas started for Chunichi and was asked to
have an early shower by the umpiring crew after he beaned
Nothing happened at all for the first three innings
save rightfielder Shinjiro Hiyama's infield hit. But once Vargas
Igawa struckout the side in the third and fifth for
six of his 11 strikeouts. In the sixth, the Tigers rocked Dragons
After Fukudome banged his hit in the eighth, centerfielder
Alex Ochoa grounded into a twin killing, so Igawa had
Igawa's mother Ritsuko was interviewed by one of the
Japanese sports dailies at the family home in Ibaraki and
Kinkade is likely to miss the next few days. He has
taken two good shots to the head in the past week and manager
Inoue once had a 21 game hitting streak in 1999.
E: Tanishige
Season Series: Chunichi 0, Hanshin 1 Game Time:
|
| Rhodes Homers Twice, Etoh, Shimizu Drive in Three to Pound Swallows 9-4 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tokyo Regular Yomiuri Giants
third baseman Hiroki Kokubo was given the night off after feeling a twinge
in
his surgically repaired knee, so Akira Etoh stood in and launched a monster bomb and collected a total of three RBIs to accompany a pair of solo blasts by centerfielder Tuffy Rhodes in the kyojin's 9-4 clobbering of the Yakult Swallows Friday at Tokyo Dome. The Giants wacked five homers on the night to mar the season debut of lefthander Masanori Ishikawa, who is coming off of an elbow injury. Hisanori Takahashi racked up his team's first complete game victory of the season to even his record at 1-1. Ishikawa was tagged for two hits in the first but wriggled
out of it. In the second, though, Rhodes walloped a slider
That was just an appetizer for Etoh's at bat in the
fourth. With a man down, catcher Shinnosuke Abe singled to
In the sixth, Abe leaned into a Yu Sugimoto delivery
for his first roundtripper of the 2004 campaign. Two outs later,
The Swallows rallied during their turn, as Ramirez
crashed a long single off the leftfield wall and first baseman Ken
However, with two gone in the seventh, Rhodes pummeled one 426 feet to dead center to make it 8-3 Giants. Yakult third baseman Akinori Iwamura answered it in
the top of the eighth by creaming an 86mph fastball into the
The Giants reacted with the game's final run in that
frame on an Abe single to right, a one out Iwamura error, a
Shinya Miyamoto started for Yakult at shortstop as
usual, but he was involved in a collision at second with Etoh in
E: Miyamoto, Iwamura, Petagine
Season Series: Yakult 0, Yomiuri 1 Game Time: 2:52
|
| Kuroda Refinds Himself to Down Yokohama 6-2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hiroshima After being hammered
in his first start of the season, Hiroshima Carp righthander Hiroki Kuroda
returned to the mound to appear more like the guy we saw during the second
half of last season, goosing his
heater up to 94mph while stifling the Yokohama Bay Stars on two runs and seven hits to garner his first shiroboshi of the 2004 schedule 6-2 at Hiroshima Municipal Stadium Friday. Kuroda was in such a groove that Yokohama skipper Daisuke Yamashita remarked that their scoring two runs on somebody who was throwing so well was actually encouraging. Pete Walker, coming off of a strong debut outing, was
lambasted for six runs in only 2.1 innings for his first defeat
The fish began drowning Walker rightaway, as rightfielder
Shigenobu Shima applied good wood to a first pitch
In the third, Shima singled to right and LaRocca deposited
one into the rightfield stands, his first Japanese roundtripper. One out
later, Maeda made it 200 lifetime circuit clouts with a long distance call
to the rightfield
In the meantime, Yokohama picked up its first run,
though they could have gotten more. Shortstop Takuro Ishii leadoff with
a single to center. Leftfielder Takanori Suzuki doubled to left. One out
later, first baseman Tyrone
The Stars then acquired their next tally in the fifth
when second baseman Seiichi Uchikawa bonked one into the
SB: LaRocca
Season Series: Yokohama 0, Hiroshima 1 Game Time: 2:34
|
Team Reports
| Chunichi | |
| Reliever Eiji Ochiai, who has been out with shoulder discomfort recently, tossed some batting practiced to the Dragons minor league team Friday and had good velocity and movement on his pitches. He will likely be assigned another bp session next week and then may | make a couple of rehab appearances before being brought back up
to the top club. Ochiai says he still has to sharpen up his forkball a
little, though.
|
