NPB: Exhibition Action March 6-7, 2014
Only a pair of afternoon games were on the exhibition schedule and both featured exciting late inning comebacks.
Dragons 2 Lions 1
The Saitama Seibu Lions and Chunichi Dragons met under the big sky at Komaki Municipal Baseball Stadium. A dozen donuts were put up on the scoreboard before a Ryota Wakiya single brought home Masato Kumashiro to give the Lions a 1-0 margin. Takahito Kudo drew a walk and came home on a double by Anderson Hernandez for a brief 1-1 tie. Alexis Gomez quickly followed with another double to give the Dragons a 2-1 lead. The game was streamed live on the official Chunichi Dragons channel and archived for fans.
Buffaloes 4 Swallows 3
The Tokyo Yakult Swallows and Orix Buffaloes met under the big roof at Kyocera Dome in Osaka. An upper deck solo shot from Wladimir Balentien in the 1st inning put the Swallows on top. The Buffaloes took a 2-1 lead with two outs in the 3rd on back to back doubles by Ryoichi Adachi and Tomotaka Sakaguchi followed by a productive knock from Esteban German. The game was tied up at 2-2 with some yard work from Lastings Milledge in the 6th. Coco Balentien singled in a run in the top of the 7th to give the birds a 3-2 advantage, but the herd tied it up on another RBI double from Tomotaka Sakaguchi and Takuya Hara brought him home with a single. The Buffaloes held on for a 4-3 victory.
March 7, 2014
A trio of 1 o’clock games led off the exhibition schedule. The final contest began at 6 in the evening.
Hawks 8 BayStars 0
In afternoon action, the visiting Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks defeated the hometown DeNA BayStars at beautiful Yokohama Stadium.
Marines 6 Tigers 2
After the lunch dishes were cleared, the Chiba Lotte Marines put together a road win against the Hanshin Tigers at historic Koshien Stadium.
Eagles 3 Lions 2
Pacific League rivals played on neutral ground at Muscat Stadium in Kurashiki. The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles triumphed over the Saitama Seibu Lions.
Giants 10 Buffaloes 6
In the last game of the day, the Yomiuri Giants picked up a victory against the Orix Buffaloes at Kyocera Dome in Osaka.
Thanks
These past two days have marked a transition. It has become increasingly difficult to find spare moments, so future daily coverage will be limited to a scoreboard with essential links and a few notes. As time allows, there will be occasional features on the game in Japan. Thank you all for taking the time to read and follow.