Japan beats San Francisco Giants in exhibition

Thursday 12th March, 10:12 AM JST

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona —

Ichiro singled during a four-run sixth inning to help Japan’s World Baseball Classic team beat the San Francisco Giants 6-4 in an exhibition game on Wednesday.

With Japan trailing 4-2, Ichiro looped a single to right field to load the bases before Munenori Kawasaki doubled off Justin Miller to tie the game.

Norichika Aoki and pinch-hitter Kenji Johjima followed with RBI singles to give Japan a 6-4 lead.

Ichiro and Johjima are teammates with the Seattle Mariners but are playing this spring for Japan, which won the inaugural Classic in 2006.

National League pitcher of the year Tim Lincecum threw 2 1-3 scoreless innings for the Giants before leaving after giving up two walks in the third. Lincecum gave up a single and three walks, striking out five in a 49-pitch outing.

Lincecum broke Ichiro’s bat in the first inning, jamming him with a 1-0 fastball in the first meeting between the two stars. Ichiro grounded out to second base.

“I got one in there pretty good,” Lincecum said. “I obviously knew about him, growing up in Seattle and following him. I just treated him the same as any other batter.”

Ichiro walked in his other plate appearance against Lincecum in the third inning, later stealing second and third base before being stranded.

“I was curious as to how (Ichiro’s) at-bats would go against Timmy. Any time you have a great pitcher and a great player, you look forward to the matchup. We did today,” San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy said.

Edgar Renteria singled, homered and scored twice for the Giants. Pablo Sandoval had two hits and drove in a run.

The first three Giants to face Japanese right-hander Masahiro Tanaka reached base as San Francisco took a 2-0 lead in the first inning.

Randy Winn walked and Renteria singled before Sandoval singled to center to drive in the first run. Travis Ishikawa hit a sacrifice fly two batters later.

Renteria homered in the third inning before Sandoval doubled and scored on a groundout by Aaron Rowand.

Ishikawa was hit by a pitch in the third inning by Tetsuya Utsumi, who then took his cap off and bowed toward Ishikawa in apology.

Japan begins Classic second-round play on Sunday in San Diego. Japan will play the Chicago Cubs in a final tuneup in Arizona on Thursday.

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14 Comments

telecasterplayer at 12:17 PM JST - 12th March

not so tough without the steroids, are they
Wottock_Hunt at 01:41 PM JST - 12th March

In other news: Toss Not Given.
xpompey8 at 02:20 PM JST - 12th March

They play exhibition games in the middle of the World Baseball Classic?
TexasAggie at 02:24 PM JST - 12th March

Wonder how much Samurai Japan paid the Giaints to take a dive.
soldave at 03:20 PM JST - 12th March

xpompey8 - Was thinking the exact same thing. Maybe Japan thought they needed it after being beaten by RoK.
Altria at 03:21 PM JST - 12th March

Why is Hara trotting out his benchwarmers when he never uses them in a real game?
toadold at 08:47 PM JST - 12th March

Paying to take a dive in an exhibition game? Coaches use exhibition games to evaluate individual players. The see what their rookies and bench players are capable of doing against experienced players from another team. Whether or not their injured players are limping and etc. I'd pay extra to see the Texas Rangers last past August.
rollonarte at 08:56 PM JST - 12th March

"National League pitcher of the year Tim Lincecum threw 2 1-3 scoreless innings for the Giants before leaving after giving up two walks in the third. Lincecum gave up a single and three walks, striking out five in a 49-pitch outing.

Not bad for pre-season, against the best Japan has.
Musubi at 09:41 PM JST - 12th March

Samurai Nippon Ganbare!!!
ca1ic0cat at 01:35 AM JST - 13th March

Time to make the world series a TRUE world series by taking the winner from the Japanese leagues and having a best of seven series with the winner in the USA. I propose Hawaii as the venue. Should be a great event.
pathat at 03:18 AM JST - 13th March

The NPB champ would have virtually no chance to win a best-of-seven series against the World Series champ.

MLB draws on a much deeper talent pool from around the world as compared to the insular Japanese approach to the game.

There will probably never be a true World Series in a format like the soccer World Cup because there is no legitimate business reason for MLB to alter its season once every 4 years to do so. Unless someone can conclusively demonstrate otherwise, it will be business as usual.

As far as the result of this game goes, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Japan's best in peak condition for the WBC could win a meaningless spring training game against the SF Giants.
kornholio at 08:53 AM JST - 13th March

I'm for a NPB vs MLB champions game. Have it here in Japan because of the market here. This would replace the NPB vs MlB allstar game they had here a few years ago which they stopped now. And it would replace the first few games of the season the MLB plays in Japan..
lostrune2 at 07:05 PM JST - 13th March

Nah, a true World Series would have the Japanese and Latin teams playing in the MLB, playing against all the other teams (not just against 7 or 11 other teams), in a long 150+ games season to comb just the top ~15% (about 1 in 7) teams, who'd then have to survive 3 or 4 tiers of playoffs. Whoever survives should be the one. ;-)
fightfan2008 at 05:36 PM JST - 17th March

6-4 loss isn't that bad considering that they were playing against against a team of Japanese all stars who are probably peaking for the WBC tournament.

As for Soldave and TexasAggie-you guys can't be serious...