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Darvish, Aoki lead Japan over Australia in warm-up for Olympic qualifiers
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FUKUOKA, Nov. 23 (22:12) Kyodo
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Yu Darvish struck out eight in four solid innings and Norichika
Aoki drove in three runs Friday, leading Japan to a 5-1 win over
Australia in its final warm-up game for the upcoming qualifying
tournament for next year's Beijing Olympic Games.
Darvish gave up an RBI double to cleanup hitter Ben Risinger in
the first inning but settled down to hold the Aussies scoreless over
the rest of his outing at Yahoo Dome. The 2007 Pacific League MVP and
Sawamura Award winner left after allowing four hits and three walks
with a hit batter.
''I can't say I was in good form,'' Darvish said. ''I was
struggling with my control. There was tightness in my body tonight
and I believe I will pitch better in the qualifying tournament if I
can get rid of the problem.''
Aoki hit a game-tying sacrifice fly in a three-run third and
drove in two more runs in the fourth with a double off the
right-field wall. Chunichi Dragons duo Masahiro Araki and Hirokazu
Ibata, the first two batters in the Japan lineup, each reached base
twice and scored both times.
Shinnosuke Abe also played a key offensive role for Senichi
Hoshino's team, going 2-for-3 with a third-inning go-ahead double off
minor league left-hander Adam Blackley. Japan had 11 hits to
Australia's eight.
''It was a fastball and I hit it on the sweet spot of the bat,''
Abe said. ''I wanted to leave (for Taiwan) by producing good results
and I'm happy with what I did tonight in that sense.''
Japan's vaunted bullpen performed well for the second straight
night. Yoshihisa Naruse worked two innings in relief of Darvish
before submarine right-hander Shunsuke Watanabe pitched the seventh,
followed by Kyuji Fujikawa in the eighth and Koji Uehara in the ninth.
Japan won both games of a two-game set against Australia, which
will play in the final qualifying tournament in March.
The Japanese national team will leave for Taiwan on Saturday for
its campaign in the final round of the Asian-zone Olympic qualifiers
getting under way Dec. 1. Only the winner will earn a ticket to
Beijing. |
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