Sunday, June 5, 2022

2022 Seibu Lions Digest: Interleague play takes turn for worse

 


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With a poor second week of interleague play, the Lions have fallen to 26-30-1 and currently sit in fourth place in the Pacific League, trailing the Orix Buffaloes by two games. 

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Chunichi Dragons

The Lions exploded for eight runs and took Shinnosuke Ogasawara out of the game in the fourth inning. However, Shunsuke Sato couldn't keep up either in what was a slugfest. Nien Ting Wu was the hero with a late two-run home run and a combined four RBIs.

Brian O'Grady returned in his first game back since having a child and had an RBI double that nearly led to a HR. 

Kaito Yoza had another quality outing with six innings and one run allowed in a narrow 2-1 win. Seiji Kawagoe even had the game-winning timely hit, scoring Aito. 

Chihiro Sumida struggled in game three as the Lions couldn't pull off a sweep in Nagoya.

Lions 8 Dragons 5

Lions 2 Dragons 1

Dragons 6 Lions 3

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Yokohama DeNA Baystars

The Lions struggled to score in two out of the three games as they were shutout in one of them. 

They scored an eight-run inning for the second game taking advantage of errors and Brian O'Grady hit a home run. Katsunori Hirai earned a win as a spot starter. 

As the third game was close, it took a sayonara HR from Takumi Kuriyama to take the series after a decent start from Dietrich Enns. 

Baystars 1 Lions 0

Lions 10 Baystars 5

Lions 3 Baystars 2

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Hanshin Tigers

The Lions started well with a 2-0 win, but couldn't score nor pitch after that and lost this series in Koshien to a last place team. They had a chance in the second game when they scored four runs in one inning, but came up short.

Lions 2 Tigers 0

Tigers 5 Lions 4

Tigers 6 Lions 1 

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Yakult Swallows

The nightmare continued in Jingu as Yamakawa was the primary offense again, yet the Swallows pitching showed why they won the Japan Series in 2021. 

There were two one-run losses with a late chance in the second game, but Takeya Nakamura was out. Dietrich Enns had a tie game situation, but struggled in the 6th inning as the team was swept. 

Swallows 1 Lions 0

Swallows 3 Lions 2

Swallows 5 Lions 3

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Safe to say this Lions team isn't good. It's frustrating how the pitching has mostly done a good job up to this point, yet even they've faltered a bit with Enns and Yoza not playing well.

Overall, Yamakawa is the Lions offense while we're hoping Gakuto Wakabayashi can rebound as he returned form injury at the start of interleague play.

There are six more games to go, they need to at least win three of those if they want to say they're competitive. 

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