Dragons’ batters come up big against Giants

The Chunichi Dragons beat the Yomiuri Giants with a great performance on the mound on Friday.

On Saturday afternoon, they got their bats going.

Dayan Viciedo hit a two-run homer to help the Dragons build a big lead and Yohei Oshima drove in a pair of insurance runs with a ninth-inning triple in a 9-6 victory at Tokyo Dome.

The run support allowed starter Shinnosuke Ogasawara to leave the Big Egg with his second win of the season.

“I wanted to just really focus on getting one out at a time from the start,” Ogasawara (2-2) said.

The game was played without fans, as Tokyo is one of the four prefectures under Japan’s latest state of emergency order.

The Dragons’ much-maligned offense entered the game last among all NPB teams in both runs and home runs. They played like a completely different unit on Saturday, setting a season high in runs and cranking out 13 hits.

Viciedo’s home run came in the fifth and was his fourth of the season. He finished Saturday’s game 2-for-3 and is batting .289 with 16 RBIs overall.

Mike Gerber, who made his NPB debut earlier in the week, picked up his first RBI in Japan with a double in the sixth. Gerber was 2-for-5 on Saturday and has hit safely in three of the four games he’s played.

Oshima led Chunichi with three hits and drove in three runs.

Ogasawara was charged with three runs over five-plus innings on the mound. He struck out seven and walked two.

“I’m glad I was able to get a good result,” he said.

Ogasawara was also part of the offensive fireworks, driving in a run on a bloop single off the end of his bat in the fourth.

The Giants staged a furious rally after falling behind 7-0 but it wasn’t enough.

“We wanted to be able to score a little earlier,” Giants head coach Daisuke Motoki said afterward.

The Kyojin scored four runs in the sixth and a two-run homer by Zelous Wheeler made it a one-run game in the seventh. That was as close as Yomiuri got.

Ogasawara put his faith in his teammates after coming out of the game during the sixth.

“All I could do was cheer,” he said. “I was pulling for them from the bench.”

Yomiuri starter Nobutaka Imamura was charged with the loss. Imamura (2-1) was charged with 4 runs in 4⅔ innings.

After winning two games, the Dragons will have to wait before getting the chance to complete the sweep.

The clubs were originally supposed to play the third game of the series on Sunday, but that contest was postponed in hopes it can be made up with fans in attendance on July 8.

Source : Baseball – The Japan Times