It was our first matchup against the Yokohama DeNA BayStars this season, meaning it was the first chance we got to see Yamato in blue. It also meant a chance at starting the revenge for last year’s playoff elimination. Let’s see how things went down.
Starting Pitchers: Taiki Ono (2-7, 4.35 ERA) vs. Satoshi Iizuka (1-3, 4.29 ERA)
2
Back-to-back one-out hits (Yusuke Ohyama single to left, Kento Itohara double off the right-center wall) set up a squeeze play by Ryutaro Umeno. Didn’t he use that tactic in last year’s playoffs against this team, too? Either way, the early lead was ours.
Hanshin 1, Yokohama 0
5
It looked like this was going to be a quick inning, as the bottom part of the order went down without a fight. But Shun Takayama battled through an 8-pitch at bat for a double down the right field line. It was followed by a near-identical double by Takashi Toritani. The lead increased by one, and could have been added to, were it not for Toritani being thrown out at home on the subsequent hit.
Hanshin 2, Yokohama 0
8
Ono was cruising along despite giving up a leadoff hit to Yamato. Itohara made a great play on the ensuing grounder to get the lead runner, but when Kai Ueda‘s throw to first skipped in the dirt and got past Wilin Rosario, the ‘Stars still had a runner in scoring position with one out. A wild pitch and a walk later, his night was over. Still… 7.1 IP, 116 TP, 3 H, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 R ← because Marcos Mateo gave up a single to the next guy. But a fly ball later, things got really tense with Tsutsugo foaming at the mouth at his chance to tie the game, or even give his team the lead. But…
出た‼
マテオのガッツポーズ🤣🤣
よー抑えた！！😆👏#hanshin #tigers #阪神 #阪神タイガース pic.twitter.com/MGiZh0Yd6p— てーじぇ#22@虎党 (@Fs22hts) April 4, 2018
And so the damage was minimized. And the ninth went smoothly as Rafael Dolis got the last three guys in order.