Nov. 24, 2009
Track the Commodores in Japan and Hong Kong
Daniel Harris is in his second year serving in Baseball Operations for the Vanderbilt Baseball team. Daniel will provide updates during the team’s trip to Japan this week.
View Day 3 Photo Gallery
Today was all about baseball. We loaded the bus at 6:45 a.m. in preparation for the first game of our doubleheader at 10 a.m. vs. Ayoyama.
On the bus we ate a boxed breakfast filled with ham and egg salad sandwiches, brie cheese, and a muffin.
In total we spent about 10 hours at Meiji Field. The ballpark was the biggest we have yet to see in Japan, with an all dirt infield andastroturf outfield.
After today’s games the players had the option of eating on their own or attending the Owl City concert at Club Quattro in Tokyo’s Shibuya district.
Tomorrow we will meet for breakfast at 7:30 a.m. and leave the hotel at 8:30 a.m. for our final game vs. Waseida University. Below are Coach Corbin’s thoughts on today’s games.
Coach Corbin’s Postgame Quotes (below) Vanderbilt 1, Aoyama Gakuin University 0 Meiji University 3, Vanderbilt 2
“After 2 days, it was pretty clear to me that Meiji University was the best team that we played thus far. All of these teams don’t give you a thing…you have to earn everything, but I felt like Meiji was the most disciplined and had the components of a championship team. They threw a left handed pitcher at us and we really couldn’t do much with him – he was a strike machine that kept the ball down the entire time and he mixed a very good curveball with a mid 80’s fastball. Like the day before, we scored two in the top of the ninth, but couldn’t push across another run and ended up losing by one. They had a shortstop named Araki who could play anywhere – great hands and feet as well as being an offensive catalyst at the top of their lineup – he will play at the next level.
“Giobbi provided all the runs for us today – he hit 2 HR’s that accounted for all 3 runs – outside of that, we were quiet offensively – looked like we were swinging under water at times and failed to execute in several situations. Good to see that now so we can attack that fundamental as we go into the winter.”
“Our pitching and defense was very solid – I really liked the way Hill pitched and it was good to see Garvin get an inning after being out for some time. Brewer was very good in the ninth to pick up the save. In the second game, Hayes was good in relief again – I like the way he is throwing the ball at this point.
“Our defense was plenty good for 18 innings – the catch Regan Flaherty made in right field in the second game was as good a catch as I’ve seen.”
