September 9th and 10th - The series lost

Messenger sad to say had a dreadful game. His start against the Giants was poor to say the least but they only managed to score two runs in the first so it wasn't so bad. Tigers though struggled against Sugiuchi who was back to his unfortunately devastating best. Even so as long as Messenger held Tigers would be in with a chance. However, with his arm having been overused this game he couldn't hold. Things disintegrated in the fourth when he loaded the bases with no outs. Giants pounced and ruthlessly drove in run after run. Messenger was removed at 6-0 but his replacement Kaneda couldn't stop the rot and two more runs scored putting Giants 8-0 up. Tigers did pull back two runs via Gomez and Murton in the bottom of the fourth but 8-2 was how the game stayed. It had been a thorough beating.
The second game started well with Tigers taking the lead 1-0 in the first courtesy of the bat of Toritani. Iwata then held the lead very nicely until the seventh - there was some fantastic pitching there and he was ably helped by Umeno. However, in the seventh Iwata threw an outside straight which was hit over the fence by a rather lucky Ibata. He just managed to get the swing in the right place. These things happen and Iwata finished the innings 1-1. Here things get incomprehensible. Wada brought on a pinch hitter for Iwata - fair enough it was about time to switch pitchers but then he also replaced Umeno. This was his usual total stupidity - Umeno had been excellent and his replacement the lamentable Tsuruoka is anything but. Tsuruoka immediately set about losing the game and the pitchers under his direction gave up runs in the eighth and ninth to give the Giants a 3-1 victory. Even Okada questioned the rationale of replacing Umeno in the Daily Sports. Andoh in particular failed to function with Tsuruoka and as this isn't the first time this has happened one must stare in wonder at the situation where Wada puts his team into losing positions with a malfunctioning battery. At the moment Wada will be gone if Tigers fail to qualify for the Climax series but one gets the impression that the knives are out and that he will have difficulty retaining his place even if they reach the Climax series.