Nowhere was this more apparent than in last weekend's battle for first place in the Central League between the Yomiuri Giants and the Hanshin Tigers at Tokyo Dome.
While none of the games were decided by glove work alone, the Giants took over the league's top spot largely because they made nearly all of the routine plays.
After the teams split the first two games, the Giants took the lead on Sunday helped along by a handful of Tigers miscues. And from that point on, Toshihisa Nishi, at second base, Yoshinobu Takahashi, in right field, and Takayuki Saito, at first base, began to put on a fielding clinic.
Converted from third base to second as a pro, Nishi once said that the hardest play for him to learn was on balls hit to his right.
On Sunday, he twice intercepted ground balls far to his right and threw back across his body to first, robbing hitters of what could easily have been singles.
After ending the Tigers' fourth and fifth innings in this fashion, Nishi came up with two down and a runner on second. He then put his stamp on the game by putting a 1-1 pitch into the left-field stands for his first homer of what had been until that point a nightmare of a season.
Takahashi then added another nail to the Tigers coffin with a hustling diving catch on a foul ball to put out their leadoff hitter in the top of the sixth.
First baseman Takayuki Saito retired the next batter with another sterling catch in foul territory to snatch one more out from the visitors.
Although the Giants ended up cruising to a 9-2 victory, it could have been far closer had the Giants suffered any kind of a defensive breakdown. Giants starting pitcher Hisanori Takahashi allowed just four hits in eight innings and helped his cause with six strikeouts. After walking a two batters in the second, he settled down and threw strikes. If you're a pitcher and your defense is making the plays they are supposed to, you can throw strikes and pitch aggressively.
On the other hand, if the defense is giving the other guys extra bases and extra outs, the pitcher has to be perfect to win.
Tigers fielders made their share of outstanding plays throughout the series, but it was their inability to make a few routine plays on Sunday that cost them their grip on first place.
Kentaro Sekimoto, their 23-year-old shortstop, showed an uncanny ability to get to flares and pop ups everywhere from back of second base to foul ground well beyond third.
Sekimoto robbed Yoshinobu Takahashi of a bloop single in the first that should have held the Giants to a run. Unfortunately for Hanshin, rookie catcher Ryo Asai's wild throw to second on a stolen base attempt gave the Giants a two-run lead.
Sekimoto appears to have a good arm but his throwing error in the second forced rookie pitcher Yuya Ando to pitch out of a jam.
And while the Giants got out of a one-out bases-loaded situation in the top of the third with a nifty double play--Nishi to shortstop Tomohiro Nioka to Saito, the Tigers defense faltered again in the bottom half of the inning.
After a pair of Giants singles in the bottom of the third inning put runners on first and second with one out, Giants manager Tatsunori Hara had his runners moving again and again it paid off.
Masahiro Kawai grounded a ball through the infield that Tigers first baseman George Arias must not have seen. Arias took two steps to his right as if he were going to field it but never bent to scoop it up. The ball headed into right for an RBI single and put runners on the corner.
With the Tigers apparently on the edge, Hara put on another play. Nishi fouled off an attempted suicide squeeze, but Ando delivered a wild pitch that made it a 4-1 game and caused Tigers skipper Senichi Hoshino to go to his bullpen.
Hoshino must have had some hard looks for his fielders after that inning, because the Tigers regrouped defensively.
The Giants leadoff hitter in the fifth, Hideki Matsui, singled but was cut down with an overaggressive turn at second base when Saito followed with a single to left. Saito was then thrown out trying to steal.
Both those runners would have otherwise scored when Kawai made it three straight hits with a double and Nishi followed with his homer.
The Tigers recovery was a case of too little too late to salvage Sunday's result, but it was a game that fans of both teams can take heart from.
Having both Nishi and Nioka hustling in the middle of the Giants infield will go a long way toward providing some defensive stability the team lacked much of last season.
The Tigers have shown exceptional defense up to this point. Derrick White is a gamer in left field, and Sekimoto could turn out to be the best shortstop in Japan. By midseason, the Tigers can expect to have two of their best defensive players, catcher Akihiro Yano and center fielder Norihiro Akahoshi, back from injury.
If the current group learns from this disaster, settles down and becomes even slightly more consistent, the Giants, now on top for the first time since last season, may find it very hard to build any kind of a lead in this year's pennant race.
The Hot Corner appears each Thursday in The
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