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Eagles vs Buffaloes Postgame: Seguignol saves the day

Photo © www.rakuteneagles.jp

KYOCERA DOME, OSAKA - Fernando Seguignol continued his improved play of late, lifting the Rakuten Eagles to a 6-3 victory over the cellar dwelling Orix Buffaloes Monday night.  With the win the Eagles lowered their new Magic Number (for home field advantage during the 1st stage of the Climax Series) to three, as 3rd place Softbank had the night off.

Rakuten opened the scoring in the second inning.  Orix starter Shogo Yamamoto (9-7) was almost out of the inning when the Eagles struck.  Consecutive 2-out singles by Jin Nakatani and Yosuke Takasu put Rakuten up 2-0.  Nakatani helped extend the lead in the fourth inning when his sacrifice fly to right field allowed Fernando Seguignol to rumble home from 3rd base.

Eagles starter Masahiro Tanaka (15-6) was cruising along through six innings, even striking out the side in the 4th, but ran into trouble in the 7th.  Like Yamamoto in the 2nd inning, Tanaka's troubles began with two outs.  CF Tomotaka Sakaguchi started the rally with a triple.  RF Hiroyuki Oze then drew a walk, putting runners on the corners.  1B Hirotoshi Kitagawa then drove a 1-0 pitch into the corner in left field, scoring the speedy Sakaguchi with the double.  With Orix runners in scoring position, veteran DH Tuffy Rhodes hit a first pitch 94 mph fastball into right field and the game was suddenly tied at three.

The comeback was short lived however, as in the top of the 8th inning Seguignol connected on a 1-2 changeup, depositing it into the right field seats.  He knew it was gone as soon as it left the bat, shouting out toward the Eagles dugout as he started rounding the bases.  Shinichiro Koyama replaced Tanaka in the 9th, giving up two hits before finishing off the Buffaloes and recording his fifth save of the year.

Pitching

Ma-kun dominated the first four innings to start things off, but ran out of steam over the latter half of his 8 inning performance.

• Innings 1-4: 3 hits (all singles), 4 strikeouts, 1 walk, 0 runs.
• Innings 5-8: 9 hits (2 doubles, 1 triple), 2 strikeouts, 1 walk, 3 runs.

Is this a cause for concern?  Perhaps.  Tanaka got lucky in the 6th inning, escaping unscathed after having runners on 1st and 3rd with no outs.  With Rhodes on 3rd, Naoyuki Omura grounded into a double play, and the slow footed DH was unable to score.  The next batter grounded out to end the inning.  As the old adage goes, "You gotta be good to be lucky, and you gotta be lucky to be good."

Photo © www.rakuteneagles.jp

Hitting

The bottom of the order supplied most of the offense tonight, with the 7 thru 9 starters combining to go 5 for 10 with 5 RBI and 3 runs scored.  Seguignol was batting just .192 at the beginning of August.  Since then he's managed to raise his average by 60 points!  He's also on a 10 game hitting streak.  During the Hero of the Game interview he was asked about the streak, to which he replied, "Oh no, now you've jinxed me!"

There was a hit of another kind that may be of concern to the Eagles.  In his at bat in the top of the 9th, Teppei was struck in the back of his left leg by a Vogelsong wild pitch.  He was carried off the field and did not return.  Hopefully the ball hit muscle and not bone.  Expect Rakuten to release info about his status tomorrow.

Next Game

The Eagles still have two more games to play before their next day off.  Hisashi Iwakuma will get the start tomorrow night at Chiba Marine Stadium for Bobby Valentine's final home game as the Lotte manager.  It should be a special game.  First pitch is at 6:15pm local time, 2:15am PST.