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Do you beleive in miracles?

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The Hot Corner for Aug. 9, 2001

Yomiuri Giants manager Shigeo Nagashima does--or perhaps it's just his fondness for oddball phrases. After getting pounded in in the final two games in Yokohama last weekend, the Giants were seven games behind the Yakult Swallows in the Central League race. Nagashima told reporters on Monday that his team needed a mound miracle to turn things around when the Giants host a three-game series with the Swallows starting tomorrow.

With the team in danger of sliding out of pennant contention at any day, the skipper revealed his latest in a long line of Nagashima phrases: "miracle again"--a reference to the Giants' 1996 pennant victory, when they recovered from an early season implosion to take the flag on the last game of the season.

The Hochi Sports reported on Tuesday that Nagashima would start Chung Min Tae in one of the games against the Swallows, while veteran Masumi Kuwata would start tomorrow's series opener--despite Kuwata's ineffective relief appearance last Friday.

"Miracle rotation," said Nagashima. "Our lineup is good. After that, it's up to the pitchers..."

The Giants pitching is in disarray without veterans Kimiyasu Kudo or Masaki Saito. To make matters worse, shortstop Tomohiro Nioka, the team's defensive anchor, is out of the lineup with a broken finger. So Nagashima can be forgiven for wanting to roll the dice with Kuwata, who showed good movement but poor location last week, and Chung, who has been on the farm squad.
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But the Giants' offense looked anything but good against the BayStars. Nagashima's crew scored just once in lopsided losses on Saturday and Sunday.

It was such a pathetic sight that one had to wonder if Yakult Swallows pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii had not showed up at Yokohama Stadium and gone to the plate wearing the helmet and uniform shirt of every hitter in Nagashima's lineup--as the southpaw did when he secretly took Yoshinobu Takahashi's place in an All-Star home run hitting contest in 1999.

However, two points suggest the Giants' ineptitude was not a result of Ishii's mischief. For one thing, he is currently resting after straining a muscle in his left shoulder so he probably wouldn't have tried to swing that much.

But even with an injury, Ishii would have been hard pressed to look as bad at the plate as the Giants batters did.

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When asked to explain the Yokohama Stadium ambush, Giants second baseman Toshihisa Nishi said, "Those things happen."

And what do the Giants need to defend their CL championship?

"First of all we have to win," said Nishi before Tuesday's game at Tokyo Dome against the Hanshin Tigers. "If we don't win, there's nothing to talk about. We have to win regardless of whether Yakult wins or loses."

Nishi, who was a key part of that 1996 miracle as the CL's rookie of the year, struggled with his bat through the first half of this season. He is now catching fire at the top of the Giants' order--something the team badly needs.  "Winning this year is going to be much harder (than in 1996)," he said.

That year the Giants were their own worst enemies. Loaded with talent, they overcame a hideous start to blow the lid off the league in the middle of the season--only to fall asleep at the wheel in September and throw away the advantage they had created.

This year, the Giants are in pursuit mode and, unlike in 1996, there are questions whether they have the horsepower it takes.

Still, 2001 would be as good a year for a Giants miracle as any, coming 50 years after baseball's most famous comeback: he New York Giants' "Miracle of Coogans Bluff."

Down and out in August, those Giants capped an incredible stretch run to tie the Brooklyn Dodgers on the final day of the season and beat them with a "sayonara" home run by Bobby Thomson at Manhattan's Polo Grounds--"the shot heard Śround the world."
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Back to the here and now, the Giants passed their first test by beating the Tigers on Tuesday. It would have been so easy to look ahead to the Swallows series and forget about the Tigers.

Short of a Tigers' pennant, there is little Hanshin's devoted fans would enjoy more than seeing their club humble its arrogant long-time rival.

"You don't really think about the rivalry or the emotion," said Tigers slugger Shintaro Hiyama, who was named the CL's top hitter for July. "But once you get to the plate, it's hard not to feel it. It's a great atmosphere."

Catcher Akihiro Yano agreed.

"Yes. You can feel it and it changes how players react sometimes," said Yano.

"The main thing (in going after a hitter) is the condition of the pitcher and the hitter," Yano said. "Of course we know they are desperate to win, so you think about that a little. As the game goes on, the situation changes and the excitement builds. Some hitters might become more aggressive, so you try to read that and take advantage of it."

The opener of the series was a classic battle that could have been a novel by W.P. Kinsella. One half expected appearances by former and long-gone Tigers' and Giants' legends before that game ended in a 7-6 Giants sayonara win.

The Tigers' Katsumi Hirosawa belted a pair of home runs to torment his former teammates and Hiyama, who admitted being in a slump since the end of July, went 3-for-5 before the Giants rallied in the ninth inning.

Nishi, Hideki Matsui, Akira Eto and Yoshinobu Takahashi provided support for Nagashima's faith in his offense. If the hitters can continue to carry their weight, the Giants will be just a miracle away from the Japan Series.

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Kazunari Sanematsu had an impressive weekend for the Nippon Ham Fighters. After entering last Friday's game against the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks, the third-year catcher went 2-for-3 with twin two-run homers, his first as a pro.

The Fighters were trailing 9-0 after two innings before manager Yoshinori Oshima decided to change his battery. Sanematsu's pair of deuces provided a charge but the Fighters still lost 13-8.

The Fighters' first-round pick in the 1998 draft continued to supply the power on Sunday, when he made it four of a kind with another pair of two-run homers in the Fighters 7-4 triumph at Tokyo Dome.

After his Sunday explosion Sanematsu said his only goal at the plate was to hit the ball as hard as he could.

Mission accomplished.
 

The Hot Corner appears each Thursday in The Daily Yomiuri .
 

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