After not homering in Yakult’s first 12 games, Munetaka Murakami needed only three more to hit his second Thursday, when Tomoyuki Sugano took his scoreless-inning streak to start the season into the Giants’ and Tigers’ low-scoring series at Koshien and the Orix Buffaloes and Rakuten Eagles played a rubber match in Sendai.

After four out of 12 teams were shut out Wednesday, we came close to having two out of six on Thursday, but had to settle for one.

Thursday’s games

Tigers 2, Giants 1, 10 innings: At Koshien Stadium, Hanshin became the first team to score off Tomoyuki Sugano, with Shota Morishita doing the honors in the eighth after singles by pinch-hitter Ukyo Maegawa and Koji Chikamoto. The run scored on Sugano’s 112th pitch and snapped a 20-inning scoreless streak. Sugano struck out nine for the third time since 2021 while allowing six hits and two walks.

“It’s not like I’ve throwing any particularly good pitches, but I’ve been locating well,” the 34-year-old Sugano said after strikeouts got him out of a couple of early scrapes.