On Sunday in Japan, a rookie pitched in when a veteran teammate was sidelined and did well in a game where Giants outfielder Elier Hernandez, whose defensive misadventures had raised eyebrows a week earlier did it all with his bat and his glove. Elsewhere, another rookie tied a record, while Lotte blew a ninth-inning lead on what Marines manager Masato Yoshii called a “little league play,” which also showed how far Japan’s umpires are now going to ignore their own rules.

Meanwhile, the Orix Buffaloes reached 1 million in attendance the earliest in franchise history – which of course dates back only to 2005, not because that was the year they merged with the Kintetsu Buffaloes, but because prior to 2005, attendance figures were just made up out of thin air and called records, so NPB doesn’t even count them anymore.

Sunday’s games:

Buffaloes 4, Lions 1: At Osaka UFO Dome, Seibu ace Kona Takahashi (0-8) allowed two runs on one hit over three innings, when manager Hisanobu Watanabe’s patience ran out. The Buffaloes loaded the bases in the second on two walks and a hit batsman and took the lead on Yutaro Sugimoto‘s sacrifice fly. Two no-out walks in the third set up another sac fly, by Kotaro Kurebayashi. Leandro Cedeno hit his eighth home run, leading off the fourth. Orix scored in the fifth off Bo Takahashi on a single, a two-base error, and a Ryo Ota sac fly.