June ended with a couple of humiliating losses to the Chunichi Dragons, dropping the team from the thick of the hunt to the back of the pack.
July didn’t start any better, but at least it ended with a hope that run production is about to improve by leaps and bounds. If only the same could be said of the defense, which continues to look more like the kids who are storming Koshien in August, than like the professionals that occupy the stadium the rest of the year.
Six straight losses sandwiched a memorable all-star weekend (see here for report), which essentially ensured the team’s second straight sub-.500 month. The Giants showed us who was boss in our own park, winning three straight close ones, and the Dragons continued their dominance against us, this time in their barn plus one out in the countryside. Daisuke Matsuzaka, who only lasted 1/3 inning against the BayStars last week (8 H, 8 ER), shut us down when it mattered, and the team continued to put up insufficient numbers in support of some pretty decent pitching.
I suppose the highlight of the league games was taking three straight out of a struggling Hiroshima Carp team at home. Minoru Iwata pitched a gem in the opener, the bats showed a rare display of fireworks in the middle game (including Kento Itohara‘s requisite single home run on the year), and Haruto Takahashi shut them down in the last game.
Outside of that, though, the lone bright spot was sweeping the lowly Yakult Swallows in a rain-shortened series a couple of weeks back. Despite Rafael Dolis blowing a save in the ninth inning of the first game, the team walked it off on a Koji Chikamoto sacrifice fly. Chikamoto also propelled the team to victory in the second game, hitting a three-run home run to help Yuki Nishi to his first win in like two months.
Taking the first two games at Tokyo Dome was also very exciting, especially the nature of the wins. Yangervis Solarte made his debut with the team a memorable one, crushing a seventh-inning pitch deep to left for the win. Then in the second game, he set the table for the team’s first run, and somehow our pitchers stranded 18 Giants on the bases. Unfortunately, the series was stained by a humiliating 16-4 loss… two grand slams against in one game (for the second time this year!).
Still, the team has shown very little fire during their “ultra summer” home stands – the last two before they vacate Koshien Stadium for the summer high school tournament. In the first three-game set, they squeaked out a tie in the opener before bowing out to the red-hot Yokohama BayStars in the next two.
Then to cap off the month, they played two against the Chunichi Dragons in those same flame (ketchup?) tainted uniforms. They dropped the final game of the month, and start August with Shintaro Fujinami‘s first start of the season, but right now, let’s end our recap with the most exciting hit of the month. And the call that went with it, too. You’ll want to have your volume on when you watch this clip…
Welcome to Hanshin, Solarte. May you hit many more long balls the rest of the way. Lord knows we need your red-hot bat.