[Previous entry: "Japan Baseball News: Fans Riot in Gifu; Swallows Pummel Giants with Homers"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Taiwan Baseball News: Davenport Proves Worth of Mighty U.S. Buck"]
06/12/2003 Archived Entry: "Japan Baseball News: Furuta & Swallows Batter Giants for 2nd Place Tie"
Japan Baseball News: Furuta & Swallows Batter Giants for 2nd Place Tie
by Robert Kiyoshi Shadlow
Source: Japan Times (2003, June 13); Mainichi Daily News (2003, June 13)
Yakult Swallows 10 – Yomiuri Giants 2:
The Swallows beat the Giants to climb into a second place tie with Yomiuri 9.5 games behind the Hanshin Tigers.
Tetsuya Iida and Shinya Miyamoto started things off in the first inning with solo home runs for Yakult.
Atsuya Furuta and Atsunori Inaba also connected for back-to back solo homers in the second inning.
Furuta had a five RBI night hitting 4-for-5 with two home runs including a fifth inning three-run homer off of Gary Rath.
Akira Eto had a fourth inning solo home run for Yomiuri.
Masanori Ishikawa (4-4) struck out four batters yielding only one run, seven hits, and two walks.
Masumi Kuwata (2-2) took the loss for “Kyojin”.
Yokohama BayStars at Hiroshima Carp:
Postponed
Nippon Professional Baseball
June 13, 2003
Central League
W L T Pct GB
41 19 1 .683 Hanshin Tigers
31 28 1 .525 9.5 Yomiuri Giants
31 28 0 .525 9.5 Yakult Swallows
30 30 0 .500 11.0 Chunichi Dragons
24 29 0 .453 13.5 Hiroshima Carp
17 40 0 .298 22.5 Yokohama BayStars
Pacific League
W L T Pct GB
34 24 1 .586 Fukuoka Daiei Hawks
34 25 0 .576 0.5 Kintetsu Buffaloes
30 28 1 .517 4.0 Seibu Lions
28 28 0 .500 5.0 Chiba Lotte Marines
26 31 2 .456 7.5 Nippon Ham Fighters
19 35 2 .352 13.0 Orix BlueWave
Current NPB All-Star voting results can be found at:
http://allstar.sanyo.co.jp/result/index_e.html
Cast your vote for the Japanese All-Star Team at:
http://allstar.sanyo.co.jp/vote/index_e.html
As of June 12, 2003, five Hanshin Tigers lead All-Star balloting with over a million votes each.
Jeffrey William would have 1,032,782 if his votes weren't split into two catagories: Long reliever with 340,461 and Closer with 692,321.
Tuffy Rhodes leads all Pacific Leaguers with 880,135 votes.
