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04/15/2004 Archived Entry: "Japanese Baseball News: This Week In JBall! (4/7/04-4/14/04)"
This Week In JBall!
This report covers April 7, 2004 through April 14, 2004.
Standings
(current through April 14, 2004)
Central League
Won Lost Tied Pct. GB
Dragons 6 5 0 .545 -
Giants 6 5 0 .545 -
Carp 6 5 0 .545 -
BayStars 5 5 0 .500 0.5
Tigers 5 6 0 .455 1.0
Swallows 4 6 0 .400 1.5
Pacific League
Won Lost Tied Pct. GB
Lions 11 6 0 .647 -
Hawks 10 6 1 .625 0.5
Fighters 7 8 1 .467 3.0
BlueWave 7 8 0 .467 3.0
Marines 7 10 0 .412 4.0
Buffaloes 6 10 0 .375 4.5
This Week's Highlights
April 7, 2004: Hosokawa's Home Run Rampage
Seibu catcher Toru Hosokawa swatted two solo homers (4,5) in a 12-4 Lions victory over the Orix Blue Wave. Hosokawa's two dingers capped off a personal 5-game rampage of five home runs. On April 4, 2004, in the second of this 5-game stretch, he hit for the cycle.
April 9, 2004: Nearly Perfect Tigers Home Opener
The 2003 Central League Champion Hanshin Tigers played their first home game of 2004 against the Chunichi Dragons before a capacity crowd of 55,000 at Koshien Stadium, and Hanshin starter Kei Igawa nearly pulled off a perfect game, a feat no Tigers pitcher has ever accomplished. Igawa (2-0) pitched seven innings of perfect baseball before giving up an eighth-inning single up the middle to Chunichi's cleanup hitter, Kosuke Fukudome. Igawa handed the Dragons a 6-0 defeat and finished up with a pitching line of 9 innings, 3 hits, 0 walks, and 11 strikeouts.
April 9, 2004: Pitching Showdown at Seibu Dome
Seibu's Daisuke Matsuzaka and Kintetsu's Kevin Beirne matched zeroes for eight and a half innings before Lions shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima finally broke the scoring drought off reliever Hector Carrasco (1-2) with a game-ending sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth to win the game 1-0 at Seibu Dome. Matsuzaka (1-2) earned the win with a dominating 2-hit 10-strikeout performance in nine innings of work. Beirne was nearly as good with his no-decision, yielding only three hits and fanning eight in 8 innings.
April 14, 2004: Giants' Abe on a Roll
Yomiuri's Shinnosuke Abe pulled off a mind-blowing 5-game 7-homer power streak by stroking a solo shot (7) against the Chunichi Dragons at Tokyo Dome. The Dragons edged the Giants 4-3, but what a stretch of games for Abe. On April 9th, he hit his first home run of the season in a 9-4 victory over the Yakult Swallows. On April 10th, he ripped a 2-run homer in a 4-3 victory over Yakult. On April 11th, he helped beat the Swallows again 7-5 with two home runs, one a grand slam. After an off-day, in a wild 11-10 extra-inning victory over the Dragons on April 13th, Abe belted two 3-run jacks and won the game in the bottom of the 12th with a bases-loaded walk. Wow!
Who Went Deep This Week
Chunichi: Fukudome (1,2,3), Inoue (3), Ochoa (3), Tanishige (1)
Daiei: Deguchi (1), Iguchi (4), Jojima (4,5), Matsunaka (5,6), Zuleta (3)
Hanshin: Arias (3,4,5), Imaoka (3,4,5), Kanemoto (2), Sekimoto (1)
Hiroshima: Ishihara (1), Kurihara (1), LaRocca (1,2), Maeda (1,2), Nomura (1), Ogata (1), Sheets (1,2), Shima (3,4,5)
Kintetsu: Matoyama (1), Mizuguchi (2)
Lotte: Agbayani (2), Hori (2), Omura (1), Satozaki (2)
Nippon Ham: Echevarria (2), Ogasawara (2), Seguignol (2,3), Shinjo (2,3), Tsuboi (3)
Orix: Brown (4), Maeda (1), Ortiz (2), Shiozaki (1)
Seibu: Akada (1), Fernandez (3,4,5), Hosokawa (4,5), Nakajima (1,2,3), Oshima (3,4), Wada (6)
Yakult: Inaba (1), Iwamura (3,4,5), Ono (1), Ramirez (3,4), Suzuki (2)
Yokohama: Aikawa (2), Ishii (1), Murata (2), Tamura (1), Uchikawa (1,2,3), Woods (2)
Yomiuri: Abe (1,2,3,4,5,6,7), Eto (1), Kiyohara (1), Kokubo (3,4), Petagine (1,2), Rhodes (2,3,4,5), Shimizu (2), Takahasi (2)
Henry Lu
HLu@BaseballGuru.com
