Sunday, March 27, 2005

The expansion Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles defeated the Chiba Lotte Marines 3-1 in their first game Saturday as Japan's Pacific League kicked off the 2005 season in historic fashion.

Rakuten Golden Eagles starter Hisashi Iwakuma fires a pitch Saturday against the Chiba Lotte Marines at Chiba Marine Stadium in his team's first regular-season game ever.

The Eagles, Japan's first expansion team in 50 years, were formed after Japan's professional players staged a two-day strike last season over the merger of the Kintetsu Buffaloes and the Orix BlueWave.

Playing with a squad made up of many players from those two teams, the Eagles rode a complete-game performance by ace Hisashi Iwakuma, who struck out seven and gave up one run on five hits.

"I'm very happy to be the first winning pitcher in the history of the Rakuten Eagles," said Iwakuma, who had a league-high 15 wins last season for the Buffaloes. "I was motivated by the mood on our bench and knew everyone really wanted to win this game."

The Eagles took a 2-0 lead in the top of the third on a double to center by Kenshi Kawaguchi and a single to left by Takeshi Yamasaki.

"I was inspired by the atmosphere in the stadium," said Kawaguchi. "The weather was great, the fans were great and this is an exciting way to get things started for our team."

The Eagles will play out of Fullcast Stadium in Sendai. Their home opener will be on April 1 against the defending Japan Series champion Seibu Lions.

A capacity crowd of 28,353 was in attendance at Chiba Marine Stadium. About 700 fans made the trip from Sendai and sat in the left-field seats cheering on the Eagles.

Chiba Lotte cut the lead to one run in the bottom of the seventh on catcher Tomoya Satozaki's bloop single to center that scored former Montreal Expos player Val Pascucci.

The Eagles got an insurance run in the top of the ninth on Tadaharu Sakai's double to left that scored the runner from third.

Iwakuma retired Benny Agbayani, Pascucci and Matt Franco in order in the bottom of the ninth to nail down the franchise's first victory.

Rakuten manager Yasushi Tao shook hands with Lotte manager Bobby Valentine in a ceremony held before the game.

The Marines, who missed out on a Pacific League playoff spot last season by half a game, failed to take advantage of a strong pitching performance by ace Naoyuki Shimizu, who gave up three runs on six hits over 8 1/3 innings to take the loss.

Hawks 3, Fighters 1

Hiroshi Shibahara hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh to lead the SoftBank Hawks to a win over Hokkaido Nippon Ham at Fukuoka Yahoo Dome.

SoftBank starter Tsuyoshi Wada picked up the win after giving up one run on five hits over 7 2/3 innings.

Lions 3, Buffaloes 2

At Invoice Seibu Dome, Tomoaki Sato drove in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth to lift Seibu to a sayonara victory over Orix.

PEORIA, Ariz. (Kyodo) Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki tripled in the sixth inning, extending his hitting streak to 16 games in a 5-2 defeat to the Kansas City Royals on Friday.

Ichiro, who went 1-for-4 and struck out for the first time this preseason, tied the club record of 15 straight games with a hit set by Ken Griffey Jr. in 1989. The Mariners' first game this year against the San Diego Padres was excluded since it was a charity game.

NEW YORK (AP) Derek Jeter and Hideki Matsui were among a handful of New York Yankees players randomly selected for steroid tests by Major League Baseball, the New York Post reported Friday.

Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield, who testified in the BALCO grand jury hearings, were not among those tested by members of baseball's drug testing program Thursday at the team's spring training complex in Tampa, Fla., the newspaper reported.

We welcome your opinions. Click to send a message to the editor.