As soon as wood met rawhide, Seiichi Uchikawa sped out of the batter's box. He struck the ball well, and it had to be a relief, as he watched it sail to wall in center field, to finally have something go right at the plate.
At least, it would've been a relief had the ball actually hit the wall, rather than settling in the glove of Chunichi Dragons outfielder Atsushi Fujii, who made a nice catch on the run.
Maybe in a different time and place, that ball gets down for Uchikawa. But that's not the way things have gone in his Japan Series debut. It's been the exact opposite actually, the kind of series where a ball that should result in no worse than a single is turned into a long out.