A team of Major League Baseball (MLB) star players travelled across the Pacific Ocean to participate in the 2014 “US-Japan Baseball All-Star Series” with Japan’s NPB (Nippon Pro Baseball) all-star team. The purpose of this event was to further globalize baseball and so far many Japanese baseball fans flooded into the seats of the Tokyo Dome, home of the Yomiuri Giants.
Today, the MLB and NPB all-stars had their second game MLB’s starter for this game was Hisashi Iwakuma (Seattle Mariners) who had started his professional career with the NPB with the Rakuten Golden Eagles until he moved to the U.S. in 2011 along with Yu Darvish (Texas Rangers). In today’s game, he was unable to show his best performance. South Korea’s OSEN reported that team MLB’s starter allowed 10 hits and earned 5 runs in only 4 frames.
After Iwakuma’s disappointing start, according to mlb.com, Tsuyoshi Wada (Chicago Cubs) showed an equally disappointing performance back in his homeland. Wada pitched 1 2/3 innings allowing 2 hits (I homerun), a walk, and earned 2 runs while striking out one man. Team MLB is not falling 2-0 in this best of 5 series.
Though team NPB’s batters took the lead first, team MLB caught up and tied the game 3-3 by the bottom 2nd inning. Evan Longoria (Tampa Bay Rays), Justin Morneau (Minnesota Twins), and Jose Altuve (Houston Astros) bombarded Japan’s starter Chihiro Kaneko (Osaka Orix Buffalos), who is expected to post for a Major League ball club for the 2015 season. By the bottom 4th inning however, team NPB took the lead again.
Anthony DiComo expressed through MLB.com that it was not too surprising that these Japanese MLB pitchers were unable to show their best performance in this Japan series. Both players were iconic figures in Japanese baseball before they joined their respective MLB ball clubs. The 50,000 fans in the Tokyo Dome were all screaming and waving flags and blowing trumpets the moment Iwakuma and Wada started pitching. He added that they “were proud of their native sons, even if they struggled”.
Iwakuma said through an interpreter that he was not too bothered by his start at Tokyo Dome, and said “I just wanted to have fun, and I did It was a special game for me. It’s an honor to pitch in Japan. I’m away from Seattle, but I’m in front of my own fans”.
The same was for Wada who also was moved by the passion of the Japanese fans who were screaming for and craning their necks to get a better look at him. He told MLB.com “It’s something that makes you feel good. Because of that, I wanted to pitch my kind of game but I couldn’t”.
Meanwhile, round 3 of this best of 5 Japan series will be taking place on the 15th at the Tokyo Dome. Team MLB’s starter will be Jeremy Guthrie (Kansas City Royals) and going up against him will be Takahiro Norimoto (Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles). Many sports fans are already wondering whether team MLB will catch up or if “Samurai Japan” will take the series in a 3-0 sweep.
