TMCnet News
Kyodo sports news summary+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, Feb. 26_(Kyodo) _ ---------- Baseball: Matsuzaka shaky as Japan WBC team lose in warm-up FUKUOKA - Daisuke Matsuzaka gave up four runs in 3-2/3 innings and Ichiro Suzuki went 0-for-4 as Japan's World Baseball Classic team lost 4-3 to a Nippon Professional Baseball select squad in their second exhibition game Saturday. Matsuzaka allowed a three-run homer to Yokohama BayStars infielder Shuichi Murata, who hit a hanging breaking ball into the left-field stands to give NPB a 4-1 lead in the fourth inning. ---------- Swimming: Records fall in national short-course c'ships TOKYO - Ryuichi Shibata, Daisuke Hosokawa and Maiko Fujino all set new marks in their winning efforts as 10 Japanese records fell on the first day of the national short-course swimming championships Saturday. Nihon University senior Shibata won the men's 200-meter butterfly with a time of 1 minute, 52.58 seconds, while Hosokawa clocked 1:45.48 in the men's 200-meter freestyle and Fujino touched the wall in 4:32.46 for the women's 400-meter individual medley title. ---------- Freestyle skiing: Uemura wins 5th national moguls title INAWASHIRO, Japan - Moguls skier Aiko Uemura, who missed out on a podium spot with a fifth-place finish at the Turin Olympics, outclassed the field to win her fifth national title on Saturday. Uemura topped the qualifying round and went on to win her third consecutive national crown with 26.48 points in the final, 3.84 clear of fellow Olympic skier and runner-up Miki Ito at the Listel Inawashiro course in Fukushima Prefecture. ---------- Baseball: Kuroda pulls out of WBC squad, replaced by Kubota TOKYO - Hiroshima Carp right-hander Hiroki Kuroda withdrew from Japan's squad for the upcoming World Baseball Classic because of a finger injury Saturday and was replaced by Tomoyuki Kubota of the Hanshin Tigers, baseball officials said. Kuroda bruised his index finger when he was hit by a line drive during Friday's warm-up game against players selected from the 12 teams of Japanese professional baseball at Yahoo Dome in Fukuoka. ---------- Baseball: Lotte downs Rakuten in preseason exhibition opener KAGOSHIMA, Japan - Tasuku Hashimoto hit a grand slam in a five-run first inning to help the defending Japan Series champion Lotte Marines beat the Rakuten Eagles 9-5 as Japanese baseball kicked off its preseason exhibition schedule Saturday. Kosuke Kato and Kevin Beirne, who are vying for a spot in the Marines' vaunted starting rotation, had shaky outings allowing a combined five hits and three walks in four innings at Kamoike stadium in Kagoshima. ---------- Soccer: Urawa fire warning shot with Xerox Cup win TOKYO - Urawa Reds fired a warning shot to their J-League rivals on Saturday with a 3-1 win over defending league champions Gamba Osaka in the Xerox Super Cup, the curtain raiser for the 2006 season. Defender Keisuke Tsuboi gifted Gamba an early lead but Urawa hit back through Satoshi Horinouchi and Washington and Robson Ponte were both on target to give the Emperor's Cup holders the psychological edge ahead of next week's league opener between the two teams at Expo Stadium. ---------- Golf: Miyazato 8 shots off pace at Fields Open KAPOLEI, Hawaii - Japanese star Ai Miyazato shot a 1-under-par 71 that left her eight strokes off the lead in a tie for 23rd place after two rounds of the Fields Open in Hawaii on Friday. Miyazato, who began the day four shots behind first-round leader Lorena Ochoa, played the back nine first and started strongly by making a seven-footer for birdie on the 10th hole. |