Power Pros Forum

James!!!! With the HR!!!!

June 3, 2011

It was an off day, as we headed over to Fukuoka to face the FreeAgents at home. This was the perfect time to meet the newest player.

As I walked into the FreeAgents' stadium, a man with a handlebar mustache walked up to me. He looked very young despite said mustache, so I thought he was our new player.

"So," I said, "you must be our newest pitcher."

"Indubitably!" the man boomed charismatically. "My name, good sir, is William Chance, Esquire. Pleased to make your acquaintance!"

"Yes, well, likewise!" I liked this guy. He reminds me of those guys in the 19th century who drank whiskey and took part in bare-knuckle boxing matches. "We hope you can come up and immediately contribute. What do you feel are your strengths, William?"

"Ah! Well, I have an infatuation with the glorious sport of base-and-ball that is rivaled by none other! It is honourable, and I wish to treat it as such! But, alas, as for specific talents pertaining to me, I have remarkable precision with a pitch. I rarely walk anyone. I also take much jubilation in my vertical slider, it's my best pitch, for sure. I also do magic tricks in the offseason, I'm quite the renaissance man, I'll have you know."

"Oh, well, um... all right then! Looking forward to watching you pitch! You'll likely be starting on the 9th, against the Lions."

"The pleasure is mine, Mr. Huitt. The pleasure is most surely mine."

June 4-5, 2011

We'll be facing the FreeAgents this series. We handled them pretty easily last time out, this shouldn't be any different.

Game 1

Nagoya Aliens 6 - Fukuoka FreeAgents 2

W - Zheng Ma (7-2)
L - Keisuke Imai (0-8)
HR - Adam Henderson (11)
Ethan Mason (7)
Alex Weiss (6)

Game 2

Nagoya Aliens 6 - Fukuoka FreeAgents 1

W - Andrew Nelson (7-4)
L - Satoshi Fukuda (0-3)
HR - Daniel Sarfate (10)

June 6-7, 2011

3 wins in a row. Let's keep it going against the Hawks, who are admittedly on the opposite spectrum of the FreeAgents talent-wise. I still think we can manage to hold our own, though

Game 1

Nagoya Aliens 3 - Fukuoka Softbank Hawks 4
W - Shota Ohba (3-0)
L - Alberto Blanco (8-2)
SV - Brian Falkenborg (17)

Game 2

Nagoya Aliens 11 - Fukuoka Softbank Hawks 5
W - Wally Burton (6-0)
L - Hiroki Yamada (5-3)
HR - Efren Martinez (38)
Nobuhiko Matsunaka (5)

June 8, 2011

4-1 in our last 5 games after splitting the series against the Hawks. We'll be facing the Lions at the Seibu Dome, which, personally, is my favorite stadium in terms of aesthetics.

Game 1

Nagoya Aliens 8 - Seibu Lions 2
W - Geoff Taylor (7-2)
L - Ryoma Nogami (1-4)
SV - Ricardo Diaz (1)

I'm stopping in the middle of a series because I want to give Chance's first start the full recap. I see potential in him, and he'll make it tough on me decision-wise when Chen recovers.

Nice job going 5-1

4-1 I believe.

Yeah, but 5-1 in their last 6

June 9, 2011

Pregame Notes: The very dapper William Chance takes on the Lions' Masamitsu Hirano. Hirano has struggled mightily with a 10.8 ERA this season. Part of his struggles are that he is not great at pitching with runners in scoring position, and when he misses, he tends to miss in the middle of the zone.

Boxscore:

Nagoya Aliens 5 - Seibu Lions 2

Aliens' Batting
A. Henderson - 3-4, 3B, RBI, R, .314 (plus two amazing diving catches that only he and his 100 speed could get to, which I needed to note)
A. Collins - 0-3, RBI, BB, .274
R. Perez - 1-4, HR (10), RBI, R, .284
E. Martinez - 2-4, R, .365
A. Weiss - 0-3, BB, .291
W. James - 0-4, .308
D. Sarfate - 2-4, 2 R, .279
P. Gomez - 3-4, 2B, 2 RBI, .302
E. Mason - 0-4, .233

Lions' Batting
T. Kuriyama - 1-4, .268
G. Sumitani - 0-4, .177
H. Nakajima - 1-4, HR (13), RBI, R, K, .325
T. Nakamura - 0-3, .273
H. Hirao - 0-3, .245
H. Asamura - 1-3, HR (7), RBI, R, K, .253
J. Fernandez - 0-3, .176
R. Sakata - 0-3, .235
S. Akiyama - 0-3, .152

Aliens' Pitching
William Chance - 8 IP, 2 H, 2 K, 0 BB, 2 ER, 2.25 (W, 1-0)
Johnny Swagger - IP, H, 0 ER, 1.90 (SV, 13)

Lions' Pitching
Masamitsu Hirano - 5 IP, 5 H, 0 K, 2 BB, 3 ER, 9.45 (L, 0-4)
Shuichiro Osada - 2 IP, 3 H, ER, 5.64
Fumikazu Kimura - 2 IP, 3 H, ER, 3.00

Player(s) of the Game: <- William Chance and Pedro Gomez

Postgame Notes - A great win, thanks to a great debut.

Pedro Gomez started the scoring in the top of the second with a 2-run double, driving in Martinez and Sarfate. He showed a particularly great approach on that hit.

The main story, however, was not the offense. It was William Chance, who turned in a performance for the ages. He took a perfect game into the 7th inning in his first professional start and went 8 innings, only giving up 2 hits which, unfortunately, happened to be homers.

Chance almost lost his perfecto in the beginning of the 7th, but an amazing diving catch by Adam Henderson preserved it for the time being. However, with 2 outs, Lions superstar shortstop broke everything - the perfect game, the no-hitter, and the shutout - up with a solo homer to left field.

Johnny came in and closed out the 9th inning for his 13th save of the season.

James...

Well that was a nice game for Chance

June 11-12, 2011

Great series against the Lions. We're now heading into Chiba City to face the Marines, who we swept in our last meeting.

Game 1

Nagoya Aliens 2 - Chiba Lotte Marines 1
W - Zheng Ma (8-2)
L - Yoshihisa Naruse (5-5)
SV - Johnny Swagger (14)
HR - Adam Henderson (12)

Game 2

Nagoya Aliens 4 - Chiba Lotte Marines 3
W - Bryan Wade (2-0)
L - Yasuhiko Yabuta (2-3)
SV - Johnny Swagger (15)

June 13-14, 2011

We've gone 8-1 in our last 9 games. This team is truly on a roll, and we hope to keep rolling right along against the Fighters. We split the series with them last time out.

Game 1

Nagoya Aliens 0 - Nippon-Ham Fighters 3
W - Ryo Sakakibara (3-1)
L - Alberto Blanco (8-3)
SV - Hisashi Takeda (20)

Game 2

Nagoya Aliens 4 - Nippon-Ham Fighters 1
W - Wally Burton (7-0)
L - Yu Darvish (2-2)

June 15-16, 2011

Splitting the series = not great. However, beating Darvish = great. The fact that we can carry that over into this upcoming series against the Buffaloes will already give us some necessary momentum.

Also, this series happens to be our second-to-last interleague series of the year. So, the next time any of our players will be facing any PL players after the next series will be in the All-Star Game(s).

Game 1

Nagoya Aliens 0 - Orix Buffaloes 5
W - Yuki Nishi (5-6)
L - Geoff Taylor (7-3)

Game 2

Nagoya Aliens 8 - Orix Buffaloes 3
W - William Chance (2-0)
L - Kazuki Kondoh (4-3)
HR - Daniel Sarfate (11)
Adam Henderson (13)

June 18-19, 2011

It's our last interleague series of the year, and it'll be against the Golden Eagles.

I learned that Chen has recovered from his injury. It looks like Taylor would end up being sent down by Greene, as he has struggled the most out of the starters so far with a 4.68 ERA. Though if Chen starts regressing again, we'll be seeing Taylor, for sure.

Chance has been moved up to the #5 spot in the rotation, and Chen was reinstated in his familiar #6 spot.

Game 1

Nagoya Aliens 7 - Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles 6
W - Zheng Ma (9-2)
L - Darrell Rasner (1-2)
SV - Johnny Swagger (16)
HR - Takeshi Yamasaki (6)

Game 2

Nagoya Aliens 1 - Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles 5
W - Hisashi Iwakuma (6-6)
L - Andrew Nelson (7-5)

I'm too lazy to go back and check our actual record in interleague play, but we did maintain our first-place standing, so, judging off that, I'm going to say we did well.

We'll be playing our next game on the 21st, at home, against the Beef, who are 1.5 games behind us in the Central League standings. I'd like nothing more than to widen that gap a bit.

Johnny Swagger has lots of swag lately eh?

5-3 noice

Stealin' my thing Liam!

Meanie

Sharing is Caring

Why you have to beat Rasner? He my man PPJ

Your thing? Since when?

Anyways, Swagger's doin' swag-ly

That is what I was thinking