Card Of The Week July 12

There were two events last week that I wanted to highlight.  The first one is that there was a combined no-hitter on Thursday when three Swallows pitchers - Nash Walters, Jesús Liranzo and Jose Quijada - held the Carp hitless in Hiroshima.  It was the sixth combined no-hitter in the regular season in Japanese baseball history* but the first ever in the Central League as all the others had either been in the Pacific League (or the pre-NPB Japan Baseball League) or interleague.  It was also the first all foreign pitcher combined no-no.  

* The Tatsuya Imai-Kaima Taira combined no-hitter from last year is not counted in this list as the team that was no-hit - the Hawks - scored a run which meant it was not a "no-hit, no-run" game

The game was pretty close as the Swallows were clinging to a 1-0 lead going into the bottom of the ninth and things got interesting pretty quickly when Quijada walked the lead off hitter Norihiko Nabara and the next batter, Naru Katsuda, sacrificed Nabara to second.  Sandro Fabian grounded out for the second out but Nabara advanced to third on the play.  Shogo Sakura then walked, putting the winning run on first and bringing up pinch hitter Ryosuke Kikuchi.  One of the pitches to him went a bit wild but Swallows catcher Yudai Koga blocked the ball and kept Nabara at third.  Shu Kubo, who was pinch running for Sakura, moved up to second on the play (he's actually credited with a stolen base) so a base hit by Kikuchi would likely win the game for the Carp.  Kikuchi struck out though, ending the threat and the no-hitter.

Previously in a case like this, I'd share cards of the pitchers involved but since foreign players are kind of ephemeral in NPB and all three pitchers joined NPB in since 2024, the last year I have cards for, I don't have any cards of them.  Instead, I'm sharing a card of Koga, who's blocking of the errant pitch in the ninth saved the shutout and potentially the game:

2024 BBM Swallows #S41

The other event I wanted to mention was that on Tueday, Shohei Ohtani hit the 300th home run of his MLB career.  I thought I'd share a card commemorating his first NPB home run some 13 years ago Friday:

2014 BBM Fighters #F79