The expansion Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles defeated the Lotte Marines 3-1 in their first game Saturday as Japan's Pacific League kicked off the 2005 season in historic fashion.
The Eagles, Japan's first expansion team in 50 years, were formed after Japan's professional players staged a two-day strike last season over the merger of the Kintetsu Buffaloes and the Orix BlueWave.
Playing with a squad made up of many players from those two teams, the Eagles rode a complete-game performance by ace Hisashi Iwakuma, who struck out seven and gave up one run on five hits.
PHOTO: AP
"I'm very happy to be the first winning pitcher in the history of the Rakuten Eagles," said Iwakuma, who had a league-high 15 wins last season for the Buffaloes. "I was motivated by the mood on our bench and knew everyone really wanted to win this game."
The Eagles took a 2-0 lead in the top of the third on a double to center by Kenshi Kawaguchi and a single to left by Takeshi Yamasaki.
"I was inspired by the atmosphere in the stadium," said Kawaguchi. "The weather was great, the fans were great and this is an exciting way to get things started for our team."
The Eagles will play out of Fullcast Stadium in the northeastern city of Sendai. Their home opener will be on April 1 against the defending Japan Series champion Seibu Lions.
A capacity crowd of 28,353 was in attendance at Chiba Marine Stadium. About 700 fans made the trip from Sendai and sat in the left field seats cheering on the Eagles.
"Iwakuma pitched better than we expected," said Rakuten's American general manager Marty Kuehnert. "We've got a good little ballclub. Everyone picked us to finish last but we're in first place right now."
Lotte cut the lead to one run in the bottom of the seventh on catcher Tomoya Satozaki's bloop single that scored former Montreal Expos player Val Pascucci.
The Eagles got an insurance in the top of the ninth on Tadaharu Sakai's double to left that scored the runner from third.
Iwakuma retired Benny Agbayani, Pascucci and Matt Franco in order in the bottom of the ninth to nail down the franchise's first victory.
Rakuten manager Yasushi Tao shook hands with Lotte manager Bobby Valentine in a ceremony held before the game.
The Marines, who missed out on a Pacific League playoff spot last season by half a game, failed to take advantage of a strong pitching performance by ace Naoyuki Shimizu, who gave up three runs on six hits over 8-1/3 innings to take the loss.
In another Pacific League opener, Hiroshi Shibahara hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh to lead the SoftBank Hawks to a 3-1 win over the Nippon Ham Fighters at Fukuoka Yahoo Dome.
SoftBank starter Tsuyoshi Wada picked up the win after giving up one run on five hits over 7-2/3 innings.
At Invoice Seibu Dome, Tomoaki Sato drove in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth to lift the Seibu Lions to a 3-2 walkoff victory over the Orix Buffaloes.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS