Rugby: Japan well prepared ahead of World Cup kickoff

Japan will enter the Rugby World Cup believing they have made the necessary preparations to achieve their goal of a berth in the quarterfinals, head coach Jamie Joseph said Saturday. At an event to launch their World Cup campaign in Tokyo, Joseph said the entire squad shared a sense of purpose ahead of Japan's curtain-raising Pool A clash against Russia on Sept. 20. "We are a well-prepared team, both physically and mentally," Joseph said. "Our players, our coaches, are totally aligned. We understand what our roles are, whether it's the coaching staff, or the medical staff, or the players." After winning the Pacific Nations Cup last month, Japan finished their World Cup preparation with a 41-7 loss to South Africa on Friday, in a match that showed the gulf that still remains between the Brave Blossoms and rugby's elite nations. But Joseph said the test against the Springboks at Kumagaya Rugby Stadium had provided his side with the ideal rehearsal for the World Cup on home soil. (The Brave Blossoms wave to fans at Prince Chichibu Memorial Rugby Ground in Tokyo on Sept. 7, 2019.) "I thought it was exactly the type of physical match we needed after the (Pacific Nations Cup), and obviously a step up," he said. "The biggest lesson for us is that when we make a small mistake against a Tier 1 team, they will punish us and score points." With world No. 2 Ireland heavy favorites to top Pool A, No. 10 Japan's hopes of advancing most likely rest on beating Scotland, currently ranked seventh, in Yokohama on Oct. 13. Joseph said he and his players know the importance of a strong performance at the Sept. 20 to Nov. 2 World Cup for sustaining interest in rugby among the Japanese public. "Everyone understands how important this event is going to be for (Japanese rugby) but none more than our staff and the players themselves," he said. "We want to make everyone proud...and we will be doing our best to make sure that happens," he added. Captain Michael Leitch echoed Joseph's sentiments, saying the team was ready to execute its game plan after ticking all the boxes in the lead-up to the tournament. "We have prepared well for our goal of making the quarterfinals. We just want to approach the World Cup one match at a time and play to our ability," Leitch said. Veteran forward Luke Thompson, who is set to appear at his fourth World Cup, said he had never seen a Japan team as well prepared as this year's side. "Of all four World Cup teams of which I've been a part, this team is the best prepared and has the best spirit. We are very confident and looking forward to getting out there," he said. While Japan suffered injury scares involving two key players against South Africa, Joseph said the team had "good news" about the condition of winger Kenki Fukuoka and No. 8 Amanaki Lelei Mafi. "Kenki has got a bit of bleeding in his calf muscle. It isn't as serious as he thought early in the game," Joseph said. "As I understand it, it's a Grade 1 muscle strain. Mafi has got a (sore) shoulder but he'll be fine." Related coverage: Rugby: Brave Blossoms confident ahead of RWC despite loss to Boks Rugby: Joseph hopeful Fukuoka, Mafi will be OK for RWC opener Rugby: Brave Blossoms handed lesson by vengeful Springboks</s>A pitcher getting it done on the mound and at the plate helped the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters bring home a championship, just like everyone expected.

Not many had reliever Anthony Bass as said pitcher. What third baseman Brandon Laird did, that was pretty much business as usual.

The Fighters broke open a tense contest in the eighth inning, with a bases-loaded walk drawn by Sho Nakata, an RBI single by Bass and a grand slam courtesy of slugger Laird, and returned to the NPB summit with a 10-4 win over the Hiroshima Carp in Game 6 of the Japan Series on Saturday night at Mazda Stadium.

“We were on a mission this year” said Laird, who was named Japan Series MVP. “We had a long season, went through our ups and downs, but we overcame them. Look at us now, we’re Nippon champions, it feels great.”

The Fighters won their first Japan Series title since 2006, rebounding to win four straight games after dropping the first two in Hiroshima.

“We never got down even after losing the first two games of the series,” said manager Hideki Kuriyama. “We were able to win all three games at home and the momentum was with us when we came back to Hiroshima.”

Bass threw two scoreless innings to earn the win in relief. He struck out three and walked a batter. Bass finished the series with a 3-0 record, 0.00 ERA and eight strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings.

“I feel like I did my job, so I was happy with that,” Bass said. “More important is winning the championship. That’s why I signed here in Japan. I wanted to be part of a championship.”

The Fighters are champions for the third time in franchise history, also winning in 1962 and 2006. Their win continues the dominance of the Pacific League in the Japanese Fall Classic. Since 2003, PL teams have won 11 of the past 14 Japan Series titles. Nippon Ham accounted for the only losses in 2007, 2009 and 2012.

The Fighters got it right this time. Wrapping things up in Hiroshima was the cherry on top, as Nippon Ham entered the game just 2-11 on the road in the Japan Series since 2006.

“Definitely feel like we’re on top of the world right now,” Bass said. “Everyone put a lot of hard work in all season long, leading up to this. We faced a good team in the Carp. It wasn’t an easy series by any means. But we found a way to win, and it feels great.”

They won without calling on Shohei Otani again. Otani, who many thought would make another appearance in the series, either at the plate or on the mound, didn’t play Saturday. He was on deck in the eighth, but was called back to the dugout after Nakata drew his bases-loaded walk.

The Fighters would’ve likely started Otani in Game 7 had they lost. The team would’ve faced an emotional scene Sunday against retiring Carp hero Hiroki Kuroda. The veteran pitcher had mostly held Nippon Ham in check before leaving Game 3 with an injury.

“We faced Kuroda after we took the consecutive losses (in Games 1 and 2), but I was thinking that our players would’ve gone in the game on pure spirit,” said Kuriyama. “In a way, we took advantage of Kuroda’s energy. I really respect him. Maybe he wanted to pitch one more game, but if we were to play one more game, I’m not sure we could’ve won, so forgive me for that.

“I really don’t feel like we’ve actually done it. I need to sit back and reflect on it. But more than the Japan Series title, one of our goals was for the fans to have fun with each game.”

Laird’s grand slam was his third home run of the series. The Nippon Ham infielder, who had a tiebreaking two-run homer in the eighth inning that helped win Game 4, drove in seven runs during the Japan Series.

“I was just looking to have a good at-bat, just try to get a pitch I could hit,” Laird said of Saturday’s grand slam. “To get a big hit like that was unbelievable.”

He dedicated his performance to his grandfather.

“I’m just trying to do my best each and every day,” he said. “I’m playing for my grandfather right now, and I know he’s looking down proud. So thank you, grandpa.”

Laird gave his trademark sushi pose after the game and was joined during the award ceremony by Bass, Nakata and Haruki Nishikawa, who earned outstanding player honors. The Carp’s Brad Eldred was given the Fighting Spirit Award as the best player from the losing team.

Nippon Ham did all its damage in the eighth with two outs. Nishikawa, Takuya Nakashima and Hiromi Oka each singled to load the bases against Carp reliever Jay Jackson with the score knotted at 4-4.

Jackson walked Nakata to force in the tiebreaking run. Bass then hit for himself and delivered a single to center that tacked on another run.

“He walked the previous guy, so I was taking a strike and then looking for the fastball,” Bass said. “I haven’t swung in a long time, so I was just trying to start as early as I could. He left a fastball over the plate, and I just hit it.”

Bass pumped his fist wildly in celebration when he reached first base.

“I don’t know what came over me there in the eighth inning,” Bass said. “But it’s been fun. It’s a long season, and that’s why we work.”

Otani, who was 6-for-16 with four doubles during the series, was on deck during Nakata’s at-bat with Bass’ spot due up. But Bass said the plan was for him to hit for himself.

“The plan was, I was hitting 100 percent,” Bass said. “It was kind of like a fake out, I think.”

Laird then connected on a 135-kph slider to put the game away. His home run in Game 4 was also off Jackson, who was charged with the loss on Saturday.

The Carp, who won the Central League pennant for the first time since 1991, were trying to win their first Japan Series title since 1984.

Staff writer Kaz Nagatsuka contributed to this report.</s>The Hokkaido Ham Fighters’ never-say-die attitude culminated in a Japan Series title on Saturday night in Hiroshima.

Hideki Kuriyama lauded his team’s resilience after Nippon Ham clinched its third title in franchise history with a 10-4 win over the Hiroshima Carp in Game 6.

During the regular season, the Fighters were down, but not out, in the Pacific League pennant race. They erased what was once an 11½-game deficit to the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks to win the league title, and used the perks they earned to beat the Hawks again in the Climax Series.

“I said it when we won the league championship, we had such a tough season, but we didn’t give up, even though we had a huge deficit to overcome, and we made it all the way here, said Kuriyama. “We grew a little in every single game.”

Never give up, never give in, never say die.

The Fighters lived by that creed, united in the belief no mountain was so high it couldn’t be scaled.

So when Nippon Ham faced adversity in the form of a Carp team that held a 2-0 lead in the Japan Series, and was looking as if it might snatch a third in Sapporo behind veteran pitcher Hiroki Kuroda, there was no panic. The Fighters rallied to win Game 3 in 10 innings, and just kept on winning.

“The two games we lost and the games in Sapporo, those could’ve gone either way,” Kuriyama said.

Game 6 could’ve as well, until the Fighters finally scored a KO in the eighth inning.

The score was tied at 4-4 when Nippon Ham strung together three two-out singles to load the bases. From there, Sho Nakata drew a walk, reliever Anthony Bass drove in a run and Brandon Laird hit a grand slam. All of a sudden, the Fighters were up 10-4 and their hard work was six outs away from paying off.

Nippon Ham’s triumph required the contributions of a number of players. That was no more apparent than in the bullpen, where the relievers stepped up to face down the Carp hitters, who as a group were statistically the best in Japan.

“It’s a humbling experience to be down there,” said Bass, who was chosen as one of the outstanding players of the series. “There’s a lot of great pitchers in the bullpen. We picked each other up all series long. I was just fortunate enough to kind of have, if you want to say the hot hand, but it’s been a fun season.

“Credit to the Carp’s bullpen, they’ve been lock-down all year. They’ve got a great bullpen. It’s just we got things going our way at the end. Everyone’s just kind of been doing their job.”

With the bullpen keeping things close, the Fighters eventually found the big hits they needed. Shohei Otani came up with the first, a walk-off single in Game 3. Then it was Laird hitting a two-run homer in the eighth inning of Game 4. Those two hits came after game-tying hits by Sho Nakata. Then in Game 5, Haruki Nishikawa put Nippon Ham in the driver’s seat with a sayonara grand slam.

Before the series, all the focus was on Otani, who had an 11-strikeout performance, though while allowing three runs, in Game 1 (his only appearance on the mound) and finished the series with four doubles among his six hits at the plate.

Otani played a role, but it was the sum of the Fighters’ parts, coming through in big moments, that added up.

The Fighters simply made more plays when it counted. There was Luis Mendoza throwing five heroic innings of relief in Game 5, and Bass shining in each of his appearances to the tune of three wins. When the Fighters needed big hits at home, Nakata was there to deliver, and third-base coach Kazuyuki Shirai’s call to send Kensuke Tanaka home on Hiromi Oka’s shallow sacrifice fly to tie Game 5 in the seventh inning was among the most pivotal of the series. And those were just the tip of the iceberg.

Kuriyama preached belief after the game. The Fighters always believed the turning point was right around the corner, and four out of six times in this Japan Series it was.

They believed in one another, and believed that together there was no deficit that couldn’t be overcome.

As it turns out, as the Hawks and Carp can both attest to, that turned out to be true, and the Fighters now have the titles to prove it.

“This is a young team and we had to move forward together and we could not have won unless each one of us grew,” Kuriyama said. “So even though we became the best in Japan, we still have a long way to go. We are going to keep moving forward from tomorrow.”</s>The Hiroshima Carp are set to retire the No. 15 shirt worn by retired right-hander Hiroki Kuroda, the Central League club’s owner Hajime Matsuda said Monday.

“There are two reasons, the first is his record along with the fact that we won the pennant this year,” said Matsuda. “The other is that he showed today’s society that values are not just based on money.”

Kuroda began his career at Hiroshima and spent 11 years with the club from 1997. He rejoined the Carp in 2015 after seven seasons in the major leagues despite much larger offers on table to stay in the United States.

The 41-year-old this season helped the Carp to their first pennant in 25 years after going 10-8 with a 3.09 ERA, and took his career record to 203-184 before announcing his retirement ahead of the just-concluded Japan Series.

“I wanted to make him remembered in 15 and 20 years’ time not just as a pitcher who won 203 games in Japan and the United States, but also for the influence he had on people,” said Matsuda.

Kuroda is the third Carp player to see his shirt number retired after former sluggers from their golden era of the 1970s and ’80s, Koji Yamamoto’s No. 8 and Sachio Kinugasa’s No. 3.

Kuroda last pitched in Game 3 of the Japan Series on Tuesday against the Pacific League champion Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in Sapporo, getting Japan’s fastest pitcher, Shohei Otani, to fly out for the second out in the sixth inning before coming off due to cramp and stiffness to his legs with his team winning 2-1.

The Carp went on to lose that game, and two more, to see Nippon Ham turn the series 3-2 heading into Games 6 on Saturday before the Fighters clinched it with a 10-4 win in Hiroshima, dashing the hopes of Kuroda’s showdown against Otani in Game 7.
In baseball, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters defeat the Hiroshima Toyo Carp to win the Japan Series.