Deja Vu Spoiler

It's like deja vu all over again. That was the only thought in my head as the BayStars came back to beat Kyuji Fujikawa and the Tigers on Thursday night, September 30, 2010.

I think that scene was 3 years ago at Yokohama Stadium. The Tigers were trying to hold on to the lead over the Giants, but it was the BayStars defeating Kyuji there at the end of the season that sent the Tigers into a tailspin that they weren't able to recover from.

But that's not the only deja vu moment. The entire game looked backwards. Normally the BayStars start off with a lead, lose it, take it back for a short time before the 5th inning, then lose it all in the 7th-9th innings, most often via the long ball. That's been a very frequent pattern this season, and seemed to be the pattern on this evening.

But the Tigers struck first this time with a pair of hits in the third inning off of starter Tomokazu Ohka. Shuichi Murata tied the ball game up with a home run to left-center in the top of the 4th, but the Tigers took back the lead with single runs in the bottom of the 4th and 5th innings (amazingly without the aid of a home run). Ohka allowed 9 hits over 6 innings, being tagged for those three runs. He seemed to be in a jam pretty much every inning.

Saving Ohka a couple of times was second baseman Kazuya Fujita. Diving to his left on a sharply hit ball by Takashi Toritani in the bottom of the 3rd, Fujita snagged the ball and threw to first to retire the side and prevent any more damage. Then in the 5th inning with a runner on third, Takahiro Arai hit a sharp line drive to Fujita's left again. Diving, Fujita caught the ball parallel to the ground for the final out of the inning, preventing another run. Those two fantastic plays by Fujita kept Yokohama in the game, allowing them to make a comeback.

Hayato Terahara thew a 1-2-3 7th inning, then Shigeki threw a 1-2-3 8th. All the while, Hanshin starter Yasutomo Kubo was throwing a near perfect game, allowing just a single to Jose Castillo in the 2nd inning, hitting Fujita (also in the 2nd), and allowing the solo home run to Murata in the 4th inning. That was all the Yokohama base runners through 8 innings.

Ah, but the 9th inning. Now that was an inning to behold. Tiger ace closer Fujikawa took the mound and immediately walked Keijiro Matsumoto and Seiichi Uchikawa, bringing up Murata with nobody out and runners at first and second. Murata had pulled a long foul ball, giving a glimmer of hope for we bedraggled BayStar fans. All that was going through my mind was that late season reversal against Fujikawa at Yokohama, so many years ago. I willed Murata to hit the ball out with all my might.

And he connected.

The ball sailed right into the left field stands, a beautiful arch. A shot to cherish after all Yokohama has been through the past few seasons. Yokohama goes up 4-3.

The next three batters go down in order. Then Shun Yamaguchi closes for Yokohama, a little shakey after getting the first two outs, but holds the Tigers scoreless.

The BayStars did it again, destroyed the Tigers' late season hopes with a single blow against their ace closer, Fujikawa. It's hard to believe that it could happen again, but it did.

I'm still not sure if I can forgive Murata for all the pain he's put us through this season. But this sure does make up for a lot of it. Maybe like Lotte's Nishioka he can go from a career low to a career high next season. That remains to be seen.

Correction: It looks like I missed a couple of BayStar hits.

• Takahiro Ishikawa let off the game with a single, but was erased on an inning ending double play by Kenjiro Matsumoto.
• Pinch hitter Tatsuya Shimozono had a 1-out base hit up the middle in the top of the 8th inning off of Kubo.

I wonder if you are perhaps too hard on Murata. In an underperforming and poorly managed team he was the top scorer with 88 RBIs. This puts him about Murton/Johjima level. Watching Tigers batters particularly Arai (107 RBIs) and Brazell (110 RBIs) one is surprised how often they fail to convert runners. Most opportunities do result in outs rather than runs and even though Murata hasn't done well it was better than Arai's second year with Tigers. This was a nice post by the way. However, a question - what do you think of the proposed sale to JS Corporation?

Of the many games I watched this year, Murata has failed to deliver with runners on way more often than not. Most of those RBIs must have been games I missed.

Murata's .261 batting average shows that he improved a great deal as the season went on, but it's the .259 average with runners in scoring position that has me scratching my head as to why he's continually put in the cleanup spot. He isn't cleaning anything, just resetting the inning.

Arai is batting .303 with runners in scoring position. Granted, it's below his regular batting average of .307, but it's still much better than 1 hit every 4 chances. Arai had the enviable job of having more opportunities.

As for the possible sale of the BayStars (with some rumors saying they may move to Niigata), I'll save that for when I have more information than the initial shock and rumors.

Fujita is a quality fielder, probably the best in the team. He also has a fairly good hit rate; it's a shame we don't see more of him.

I agree somewhat regarding Murata, I think he does have a tendency to choke when faced with a vital game-changing scenario. But I believe it's his last season? He'll probably try and move to a better team.

Regarding Murata taking free agency, I'd heard that Fukuoka (where he was originally from) was of interest to him. Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I think I heard the announcers saying that he was talking with one of the Tigers before this game asking about what it was like to play for Hiroshima. SoftBank would be a serious contender (and he'd join former team mate Tamura). I'm not so sure about the Carp, though.