Lefty-lefty matchup ...

Not left out

The left-handed-hitting Shoitsu Omatsu had five homers and 20 strikeouts in 128 at-bats against southpaws last year. But rookie skipper Norifumi Nishimura’s first big move paid off in a 2-1 win over the Saitama Seibu Lions on Sunday when the new manager put the outfielder in the starting lineup against a southpaw.
The result, Omatsu saved the Marines from wasting a great start from Shunsuke “Submarine” Watanabe, by driving in both runs with an RBI single in the fourth inning and a solo blast in the seventh that broke a 1-1 tie.
It wasn’t like Omtasu tore the cover off the ball in 2009. He was a .269 hitter in 494 at-bats.
The win was not actually the very first for Nishimura. He had a victory with Lotte as a fill-in on July 29, 2004. But it’s his first as an official skipper.
“We lost the opener yesterday, but the players didn’t panic,” Nishimura was quoted as saying. “We believed in what we were doing and this is the result. It feels great,” he said about his first victory.
Watanabe snapped a personal five-game losing streak to the Lions, working 7.2 busy innings – with eight hits and three walks – but allowing just a run. He fanned two for his first win against the Lions since Sept. 16, 2008.

BUFFALOES 5, EAGLES 4
Let’s just call it late-inning apprehension. Tohoku Rakuten hurler Shinichiro Koyama’s played “hurler gone wild” in the ninth inning, uncorking a bases-loaded bouncer that sent home the winning run for the Orix Buffaloes at Kyocera Dome Osaka.
The righty, who also fired a wild pitch in last year’s second stage of the Pacific League Climax Series finale -- which the Eagles eventually lost -- walked the first batter he faced and then gave the game away.
Orix won despite a reported Opening Day tiff between slugger Alex Cabrera and new manager Akinobu Okada. The former Hanshin skipper didn’t play the Venezuelan in the opener, and the 10-year veteran zipped past reporters without a word after the Buffs won.
“Selfish players don’t get to play,” Okada was quoted as saying.
But Cabrera answered on the second day with his bat, slugging a two-run homer in the third to go with a single and a walk. Outfielder So Taguchi, playing in Japan for the first time since 2001, had three hits to help the Buffs win their first two games for the first time in 10 seasons.

HAWKS 2, FIGHTERS 1
Nobuhiro Matsuda homered in the top of the 11th inning in a 2-1 win over Nippon Ham to give Fukuoka SoftBank a two-game winning streak to start the season.

Preseason video replay
Tokyo Dome, a place where numerous visiting teams get robbed of longballs because of the hard-to-see green fence and green seats behind them, was the first place to put the new video replay system into use.
Terrmel Sledge slugged a drive to center and umps originally called it a double. After further review, they ruled it a homer. It’s still the preseason, but the Giants’ home-field advantage will be threatened.
Both the Pacific and Central leagues implemented the review system this season, and it has yet to be used in the PL.