HIROSHIMA – One win away from his team’s first Japan Series pennant in 10 years, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters manager Hideki Kuriyama has opted not to start ace Shohei Otani in Saturday’s Game 6 at Mazda Stadium.
Instead, the game will see Game 2’s starters duke it out again with Central League wins leader Yusuke Nomura going for the Hiroshima Carp against Hirotoshi Masui, the former closer who went 6-1 with a 1.10 ERA in eight starts during the regular season.
“The only thing that matters is winning,” Nomura said. “I intend to go to the mound and take them in the best way. I need to take care of their leadoff hitters. If we can’t take it to Game 7, we can’t be No. 1 in Japan.”
If it does go to Game 7, things could be very emotional at Mazda Stadium, since that would set up 41-year-old Carp legend Hiroki Kuroda with a chance to clinch the Japan Series before his home fans in the final game of his career.
Kuroda appeared to be suffering no ill effects from the cramping and hamstring tightness that forced him to leave his start on Tuesday.
“I’ll prepare completely, so I can deliver the ultimate performance should I take the mound,” he said.
Unlike Sapporo Dome, where a third of the crowd was tinted red-clad Carp supporters, there will likely be few at Mazda Stadium wearing the Fighters’ blue and white — except in the visitors’ cheering section high above the left-field foul line.
“It’s pretty much just going to be Carp fans and that’s an amazingly big advantage,” Kuroda said.
Hiroshima went 49-20 at Mazda Stadium during the regular season and is 5-1 there in the postseason, but it is going to need all the help it can get, since less than a third of the teams trailing 3-2 in the best-of-seven series have come back to win, and only a few have overcome three straight defeats to win it all.
In Game 2, Nomura allowed an unearned run over six innings, while Masui surrendered four runs — two earned — in his 5-1/3 innings. Overall, Hiroshima’s starting pitchers have allowed just four runs over 30-1/3 innings compared to 11 runs in 24-2/3 innings and a 2.92 ERA for Nippon Ham’s first pitchers out of the chute.
The difference for the Fighters has been their bullpen — the most effective crew in Japan this season has allowed four runs in 19-1/3 innings in the Japan Series. Due to some awkward fielding behind them, Hiroshima’s bullpen has surrendered 10 runs in 14 innings, leading to three late game-winning rallies for Nippon Ham in Sapporo.
The Nippon Ham relief corps is also a little fresher, with just one pitcher, Anthony Bass, having worked in four of the five games, while two of Hiroshima’s key relievers, Takeru Imamura and Jay Jackson have pitched in all five.
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