(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
 Yokohama second finalist in Japan
Nederlands
 HIROSHIMA (Japan) -
Yokohoma DeNA BayStars won 9-3 on Tuesday (October 24) against Hiroshima Toyo Carp to win the title in the Central League and become the second team to reach the Nippon Series.
Last Sunday, Dutch pitcher Rick van den Hurk and his team Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks won the title in the Pacific League to become the first finalist.
The best-of-seven Championship Series in Japan begins coming Saturday in Fukuoka.
...Yokohama 2nd baseman Tatsuhiro Shibata participated...
...with Japan in the 2014 Haarlem Baseball Week...
...in Haarlem (Netherlands)...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
In the Central League, regular season-winner Hiroshima Toyo Carp began the Final Stage with an one-win advantage.
The team opened this second round of the Play-Offs last Wednesday (October 18) with a 3-0 win, but then lost twice to Yokohama DeNA BayStars, which won 6-2 on Thursday and 1-0 on Friday.
With that, the Series was tied at 2-2.
On Saturday and Sunday, the games rained out at Mazda Stadium in Hiroshima.
The first game of the Central League Final Stage also was bothered by rain.
In the bottom of the fifth, Hiroshima broke a scoreless tie by scoring three runs on singles by Kosuke Tanaka and Ryosuke Kikuchi.
After completion of the fifth inning, a 36 minute rain delay followed.
Thereafter, the game was definitively called and was declared valid.
The Series resumed on Monday at Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium, the home of Hiroshima, where all games were played.
The home team took an early 3-0 lead in the first inning, thanks to a 2-run homerun by Yoshihiro Maru and a double by Takahiro Arai.
However, the team was held scoreless in the remainder of the game.
Yokohama got one run back in the fourth at bat when Yoshitomo Tsutsugo homered.
Three runs were then scored in the fifth inning.
The score was tied on a 2-run double by Masayuki Kuwahara, who then scored the go-ahead run on a single by José Lopez, who was named Most Valuable Player of the Series.
Yokohoma hold onto the lead and won 4-3.
On Tuesday, Yokohama won 9-3 on 16 basehits, including three by Masayuki Kuwahara, Toshiro Miyazaki and Tatsuhiro Shibata.
The team hit five homeruns and qualified for the Nippon Series for the first time since 1998, which also was the last year that Yokohama won the title.
Hiroshima again opened the score, this time score twice in the first inning.
Yokohama then scored a run in the second inning on a homerun by Toshiro Miyazaki.
The team took a 3-2 lead in the second at bat when Masayuki Kuwahara hit a 2-run homerun.
Hereafter, Yokohama added more runs, including two on a homerun by Yoshitomo Tsutsugo, and led 6-2 after five innings.
Tsutsugo homered again in the seventh inning and in the eighth, it was Takayuki Kajitani, who hit a 2-run homerun to lift the lead to 9-3.
Takahiro Arai homered for Hiroshima in the sixth inning.
(October 24)
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