“Stop the Osaka Toin”—-Who will defeat Osaka Toin, who is aiming for the triple crown following the Meiji-Jingu Games last fall and Senbatsu this spring? It can be said that the focus of this summer’s Koshien, which will be held for the 104th time, will end here.
Osaka Toin, who dominated Senbatsu with overwhelming strength and challenged for their third consecutive victory in the spring and summer.
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Conquer Osaka in a rock-solid battle
The absolute champion, who will also win the spring and summer for the third time in a row, won the Osaka tournament with a rock-solid battle. Yugo Maeda, the left-handed pitcher who is said to be the centerpiece of next year’s draft, Tsugutaka Kawahara, the winning pitcher of Senbatsu, and Kosuke Bessho, who has grown remarkably since spring, pitched five pitchers, and only 1 run in 7 games. In a total of 54 innings, he allowed only 20 hits and 21 hits by pitches.
The defense is also solid, 4 blunders in 7 games. He doesn’t even allow runners, he doesn’t make mistakes. The batting lineup, which scored 51 points in 4 games and scored 11 home runs, a new tournament record, tends to attract attention, but the pitchers Ren Kakinoki (Nippon-Ham), Akira Neo (Chunichi), and Gai Yokokawa (Giant) have entered the professional league. There is a sense of stability that surpasses 2018 when he had three pitchers (6 games, 45 innings, 37 hits, 7 hits by pitches, 0.98 runners allowed per inning average).
Of course, the smash that made the opponent school tremble with Senbatsu is still alive. He recorded a batting average of 371, 7 home runs, and 54 points in 7 games, led by Shion Matsuo, a draft candidate who hit 3 home runs at the Osaka tournament.
Does such an absolute champion have any blind spots? Osaka Toin, led by Koichi Nishitani, has lost 11 times at Koshien since Senbatsu in 2004, but five of them are right-handed pitchers (Komadai Tomakomai, Masahiro Tanaka / Minoru Waseda, Yuki Saito. / Meitoku Gijuku, Junichiro Kishi / Tsuruga Kehi, Shota Hiranuma / Omi, Yosho Yamada *The winning pitcher is Naoya Iwasa, the second pitcher), six left-handed pitchers (Kikukawa Tokoha, Kenjiro Tanaka / Nihon University Ogaki, Yuya Kasai / Prefecture) Gifusho, Ryoji Fujita/Kisarazu Sogo, Takahisa Hayakawa/Ikuei Sendai, Takuho Hasegawa/Chiben Gakuen, Omasa Nishimura). Considering the number of games played, it is obvious that he is not good at left-handed pitchers.
Even in this year’s Spring Senbatsu, he was the only single-digit hit in four games, with 8 hits and 3 points against Naruto’s left arm, Ryoya Tomita. In 2018, he scored 8 hits and 3 goals against Ryuusei Yamada (currently a giant) of Takaoka Sho, but suffered 11 strikeouts. suppressed.
