楽(Raku)Report

@ SoftBank Hawks, Series Win 3-0

Game 1 - 4/15

Woke up to watch the game today and I was greeted by the image of a mysterious mascot on the field at the PayPay Dome in Fukuoka. Was it a meringue or feces? Apparently it's Umberto (ウンベルト) the guardian deity of the Poop Museum which is presumably opening in Fukuoka or they have sort of pop-up space.

I took Umberto's appearance as an omen for the Eagles' offense today against Liván Moinelo. Indeed, it proved to be a good luck charm for Rakuten, as the Eagles dropped a deuce on the Softbank Hawks scoring two runs over 10 frames to flush their six game losing streak down the drain. Fujii pitched masterfully in this one and the bullpen was equally effective, limiting the Hawks to just one run on four hits. Moinelo pitched very well, as expected, but in the end a home run and late RBI base-hit from Hideto Asamura proved to be the difference!

Game 2 - 4/16

Umberto (ウンベルト), mascot of the Unko Museum, was in attendance again at the PayPay Dome to witness an offensive outpouring from the Eagles. Ryota Takinaka, recently called up from the farm team, pitched very well in this one and gave up 4 hits and one run over 5 innings of work. Takinaka only recorded 2 strikeouts, but he put his team in a position to win the game and thankfully the Eagles got some timely hitting to take an early lead and cruise to the 6-2 victory.

Rui Muneyama was the hero of the game, with his first ever professional home run sparking the offense in the 3rd and an 8th inning double down the left field line that set up Kobukata to add a late insurance run. Hiroto Kobukata was really the unsung hero of this game, he went 3 for 4 with a walk, 2 RBI, and 3 stolen bases!!! He has really impressed me this year and is an electric hitter with his speed and contact abilities. The bullpen was a little shaky tonight, Ehara and Kajiya struggled through their innings respectively, but Fujihira was dominant in the 8th and Konno came in to finish things off in the 9th. Kishi will be back on the mound tomorrow for his usual Thursday start, this time the Eagles will be looking to get a sweep on the road.

Game 3 - 4/17

What a game this was! Scoreless baseball through the top of the 6th inning until SoftBank's Nakamura hit a two out three run home run off of Kishi to give the Hawks a 3-0 lead. Kishi had pitched very well up to that point and the home run ended his night. The game remained 3-0 until the 8th when a potential rally by the Eagles was shut down by a double play and great diving catch in left field although Daichi Suzuki was able to bring one run in with a base hit. And so we went into the 9th with the Hawks bringing in their closer Osuna with this game feeling like a well fought game by the Eagles who came up short with some chances offensively. But that wasn't the end! 

Yoshiaki Watanabe led off the top of the 9th with a base hit and then, with the Eagles trailing by 2, Itsuki Murabayashi hit a pinch-hit, game tying, two-run home run to left center! One of the most magical moments of the season so far! I really love having Murabayashi off the bench with Muneyama starting a shortstop and electric moments like this show how good of a hitter Murabayashi is in his own right. Tied at 3-3 with one out, Kobukata singled and Asamura doubled to drive in the speedy 2nd baseman, giving the Eagles a 4-3 lead. Norimoto came in to close things out and with two runners on and two outs for SoftBank, he got Yamakawa to pop out to end the ballgame! Series sweep for the Eagles!!! Back home in Sendai tomorrow with Hayakawa on the hill against the Marines.

Sidenote, I really liked Miki's personnel choices in this series. Kengo Horiuchi has more of a presence behind the plate than Ohta and there's not much of a drop offensively with that switch. Also, sending Ogoh down to the farm and giving playing time to the likes of Komori, who has been crushing in ni-gun, shows that Miki is not afraid to sit players who are not producing (Tatsumi .196/.232/.281 was on the bench to start Game 3).

vs Lotte Marines, Series Win 2-1

Game 1 - 4/18

The bats were ice cold again at home for tonight's game against the Marines. Hayakawa did his best to keep the Eagles in the game, surrendering just 1 run in 7 innings. You can't ask for more than a 111 pitch effort with 6 strikeouts and one walk, with the only run coming on a home run by catcher Terachi in the 3rd. Unfortunately for Hayakawa, Austin Voth for the Marines completely blanked the Rakuten offense through 5 innings and the Lotte bullpen took over from there. The Eagles had a couple of chances to break through, but weren't able to come up with big hits with runners on base and their only run tonight came on a home run (2) from Muneyama in the 8th. The bottom half of the lineup was particularly anemic tonight with the 6-9 batters going hitless with lots of weak fly balls and groundouts. I find it hard to justify keeping Ohta (.094/.094/.189) in the lineup in particular outside of his familiarity with the established starters in the rotation (Hayakawa, Kishi, Fujii).

Speaking of starters, Seiryu Uchi, who started this season in the Eagles' bullpen, will be making the start for tomorrow's Saturday afternoon game. It's fireworks night tomorrow at the ballpark and hopefully their will be some fireworks from the Rakuten offense on the field to complement the pyrotechnics.

Farm Game 4/18

The DeNA Baystars broadcast today's Eastern League matchup against the Eagles' farm team (ni-gun 二軍) on their official YouTube channel which can be found below:

Game 2 - 4/19

A huge crowd was on hand at Rakuten Mobile Park tonight for Game 2 against the Marines and the fireworks show that followed the game. Seiryu Uchi, who started this season in the Eagles' bullpen, took the mound for Rakuten against Kazuya Oshima for Lotte. Uchi labored through the first two innings until he got some run support in the form of four consecutive base-hits from the Eagles in the bottom of the 2nd including an RBI single by third baseman Itsuki Murabayashi. Catcher Kengo Horiuchi then grounded into a double play, but a second run was able to score on the play and it proved to be the winning run tonight.

The pivotal moment in this game was the top of the 5th inning when Uchi gave up two singles to start the inning and was replaced by reliever Masaya Nishigaki. Nishigaki struck out Gregory Polanco and Neftali Soto, but walked the next batter and gave up a run-scoring infield single with the bases loaded. With the bases still loaded, Nishigaki buckled down and struck out the Marines' Ueda to escape the inning. Things remained scoreless the rest of the way, with Shoma Fujihira setting up Takahiro Norimoto to close the game out in the 9th and tie this series up at one win apiece. Tonight's win really was a team effort the required contributions from everyone. I hope that the Eagles can put more innings together like the bottom of the 2nd in this game where they got runners on base and delivered timely hits to drive them in. The series' rubber match is tomorrow afternoon with Tatsuki Koja back on the hill for his scheduled Sunday start.

Game 3 - 4/20

The Eagles delivered a series win today with their 4-1 victory over the Marines! Koja pitched a brilliant 6 innings, giving up just one run in the 4th on a base-hit by Lotte catcher Tatsuhiro Tamura. He was supported by an offensive effort highlighted by a 2nd inning three-run home run (1) by Daisuke Nakashima, who has seen an increase in playing time this week since Yuya Ogoh was sent to the farm team. Hideto Asamura drove in another run in the bottom of the 5th after Rui Muneyama led off the inning with a triple. Asamura continues to move ever closer to reaching 2000 career hits and 300 career home runs! The Eagles bullpen finished off the game with Kajiya, Suzuki, and Norimoto combining for 3 scoreless innings of work. The Eagles will be on the road to start next week with a short 2 game series in Hokkaido before they return home for a 3 game series against the SoftBank Hawks. This team has started to click and tonight's game was a terrific way to end the week at 5-1!

A couple of notes from this game, two moments stood out in particular. The first was in the top of the 8th when Sora Suzuki started off his at-bat against Gregory Polanco by buzzing Polanco with a fastball near his head. Polanco, understandably, glared back and the mound and nodded his head as if to say, "alright then, I see you." This was clearly a brush-back pitch from the lefty and even the umpire gave Polanco a couple taps on the chest, in an effort to keep things civil, as he walked toward the mound to deliver the ball back to Suzuki. On the next pitch Polanco took a monster hack at another fastball, this one was in the zone, and fouled it back. He worked a full count and eventually drew a walk after which he stood in the box for a few extra seconds for effect. That first pitch gave me Julio Zuleta vs. Serafini flashbacks; thankfully Polanco seems to be a pretty mild-mannered guy although I wouldn't poke the bear in Suzuki's case considering that Polanco is 6'4" and a big dude. I looked into their history against each other, nothing dramatic, no HBP before although Polanco did hit a big home run against Suzuki back in 2023. They've faced each other a number of times since then though so I doubt there's any bad blood from that. It will be interesting to see what happens when these two face off again in the future.

The second significant moment was in the bottom of the 9th with Norimoto in to close the game and Tatsumi in center as a late-game defensive replacement. With one out, Marines' catcher Terachi, the 19-year-old who hit two bombs the other night, pinch hit and singled. The next batter Fujiwara hit a looping line drive to center that dropped in for a hit. Terachi, thinking that the ball would be caught, started running back towards first base. It was a critical base-running mistake by the young catcher. Tatsumi fielded the ball and seemingly failed to notice Terachi's blunder as he lazily tossed the ball back in to the cutoff man rather than firing to second to take out the lead runner. The TV broadcast showed a replay of Norimoto frantically pointed at second base and yelling to Tatsumi and his disappointed look when Tatsumi didn't notice. Lapses in focus like that are not going to help Tatsumi get back into the starting lineup and if he continues to struggle at the plate he could very well end up alonside Ogoh on the farm team, especially with players like Nakashima hitting well.

Notes

(4/17) Called up: OF #73 Kohtaro Komori 小森 航大郎

Sent to the farm: OF #51 Yuya Ogoh 小郷 裕哉

(4/16) 1st Round Draft Pick (2024) Rui Muneyama hit his first career home run today!

(4/16) Called up: P #57 Ryota Takinaka 瀧中 瞭太

Sent to the farm: P #61 Takuma Matsuda 松田 啄磨

(4/16) Hideto Asamura is currently sitting at 299 career home runs after he homered in yesterday's game.

(4/15) Ryosuke Tatsumi has a torpedo bat on order. This to go along with the giant-knob Kokeshi Bat (こけしバット) and cow bone hybrid bat (牛骨バット) already in his quiver. Source: Daily 

Box Score Source: NPB.jp (English)