Koshien
Urasoe-Sho (Okinawa) is leading the game against Kanto-Daiichi (East Tokyo) 3-1 in the top of the 9th right now. (UPDATE: Iha pitched a complete game in the 3-1 win and looked very strong even at the end of the game, getting strike outs (127 pitches, 9 strikeouts) and even hitting 145 on the radar gun. Kinda worried about his arm though, he’s pitched all 27 innings for Urasoe so far at Koshien. Kanto-Daiichi lost without using their ace Matsumoto, who had pitched 4 days earlier on the 10th in the round of 32, instead they used a couple of younger pitchers who gained some valuable experience for next year and beyond.)
Follow up to yesterday’s action, the remaining games after Tokoha’s (Shizuoka) dramatic win was powerhouse Chiben-Wakayama (Wakayama) absolutely destroying Komadai-Iwamizawa (North Hokkaido) 15-3 with Chiben’s slugger Sakaguchi smacking 2 homeruns in the 11 run 8th inning (a Koshien first). The last game yesterday saw Hotoku-Gakuen (East Hyogo) win 7-3 over Kagoshima-Jitsugyo (Kagoshima).
A draw will be held after game 1 today (5th game in the round of 16) to determine the quarterfinal matchups. (UPDATE: Draw has been held, here’s the quarterfinals)
8.15 Day 14 (tomorrow!)
11:00 Hotoku-Gakuen (East Hyogo) v Toho – Osaka-Toin winner
13:30 Urasoe-Sho (Okinawa) v Aomori-Yamada – Keio winner
8.16 Day 15
11:00 Chiben-Wakayama (Wakayama) v Tokoha-Kikugawa (Shizuoka)
13:30 Seiko-Gakuin (Fukushima) v Yokohama – Sendai-Ikuei winner
Now I’m really worried about Urasoe’s Iha’s arm if he’s going to pitch in the quarters, not sure how good their second pitcher is, as I haven’t seen him (I don’t think hardly anyone has).
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Olympics
It looks like Saitama Seibu Lion Hideaki Wakui will start against Taiwan tonight in Beijing. This likely means Japan’s rotation will go something like this (if Hoshino is sane).
8.13 Darvish v Cuba
8.14 Wakui v Taiwan
8.15 Wada v Netherlands
8.16 Sugiuchi v Korea
8.17 off
8.18 Darvish v Canada
8.19 Wakui v China
8.20 Wada v USA (hopefully a meaningless game)
8.21 off
8.22 Sugiuchi (semifinals)
8.23 Darvish (medal game)
Don’t count your chicks before they hatch and all that, but this looks likely (hopefully), as Sugiuchi has been one of the best pitchers in Japan this season, and Kawakami was a disaster in the warmup game against CL selects last week so he’ll likely be used in relief, this rotation would make sense. (Yeah, I know I’m doing a 180 from saying that Kawakami is ace 1A next to Darvish, but this rotation will probably work best for Japan at the moment, and Kawakami could be valuable out of the pen.)
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Swimming
Kosuke Kitajima has just won the 200m breaststroke in Olympic Record time. With his double gold (100 and 200) in consecutive Olympics, the little man has shown that technique matters more than height and size in this discipline. (Kinda like how another short man, Shimizu, won the 500m speed skating in Nagano, surrounded by much taller opponents with longer strides.)
Japan, Hockey, Baseball, etc. 