The Yomiuri Giants Are Your 2009 Japan Series Champions
That Looks Fun
The Yomiuri Giants defeated the Nippon Ham Fighters 2-0 to win the Japan Series in six games, the franchise’s 21st Japan Series title. The Seibu Lions, last season’s winners, are a distant second with 13 championships. The Giants is the former club of New York Yankees World Series MVP Hideki Matsui, who batted .302 with 332 homers and 889 RBIs while with the team for 10 seasons. It was the first Japan Series title in seven years for the Giants, the last year Matsui was there.
Catcher Shinnosuke Abe drove in the game-winning run to help the Giants defeat the Fighters who was named the Japan Series MVP after the game. Abe doubled over the head of center fielder Yoshio Itoi to give Yomiuri a 1-0 lead in the second inning at Sapporo Dome. Tetsuya Matsumoto hit a two-out single and scored on an Atsunori Inaba error in the sixth inning to make it 2-0.
Yomiuri starter Shun Tono threw just 14 pitches in the first inning before being struck on the hand while attempting to field a liner back to the mound by Shinji Takahashi, he was replaced by Tetsuya Utsumi. Utsumi threw 4-2/3 scoreless innings to pick up the win. Utsumi didn’t expect to get a second chance to redeem himself after after giving up four runs in 2 2/3 innings in Game 2 in the Japan Series but he responded like a champion when he was given the opportunity.
Utsumi, who got the win, and relievers Kiyoshi Toyoda, Tetsuya Yamaguchi and Daisuke Ochi helped get the ball to closer Marc Kroon in the bottom of the eighth with runners on first and second with two away. Kroon took over for Ochi and retired Tomochika Tsuboi to get out of the jam in the eighth.
Kroon gave up a lead off double to Tomohiro Nioka in the ninth and allowed pinch runner Kazuya Murata to reach third later in the inning. But he struck out Atsunori Inaba and Shinji Takahashi to nail down the four-out save. It was Kroon’s third save he earned in the championship round.
“We were able to execute our ‘winning pattern’ today with Kroon closing for us,” manager Tatsunori Hara said. “In the end we are No. 1, and it felt great to be tossed in the air during the doage.”
