The streakers are streaking and the leads are shrinking as we enter the final weekend of July. The Carp, who have an 11-game winning streak, an 11-game losing streak, won their seventh straight, their third longest winning streak of the season.

After Friday’s games, the SoftBank Hawks lead the PL by 1-1/2 games after entering the second half with a seven game lead. The Yomiuri Giants, who came out of the all-star break leading by 10-1/2 games, now lead by 4-1/2 games over the DeNA BayStars.

They call them the streaks: 2019’s longest runs

Pacific League

Fighters 12, Lions 7

At MetLife Dome, Nippon Ham beat up Seibu starter Ken Togame for seven runs over 1-1/3 innings, but the Lions barely blinked. Japan’s best offense bounced back to tie it as Takeya Nakamura homered twice, tying it with a two-run shot in the fifth. The six-time PL home run champ now has 19 home runs and four over three games.

But after the game was tied, the Fighters rallied with two outs and no one on, loading the bases for Ryo Watanabe who tripled past center fielder Shogo Akiyama, who was playing shallow.

Bryan Rodriguez, who pitched three innings of scoreless relief, earned the win to improve to 5-2. The Fighters moved to within 1-1/2 wins of the PL-leading Hawks.

Game highlights are HERE.

Eagles 6, Marines 3

At Zozo Marine Stadium, Leonys Martin made his debut for Lotte, but the night belonged to Zelous Wheeler, whose 15th homer, a three-run shot, overturned a 3-2 deficit for third-place Rakuten.

Game highlights are HERE.

Buffaloes 6, Hawks 2

At Yafuoku Dome, Masataka Yoshida homered twice as SoftBank’s Kodai Senga (9-4) missed with too many pitches and Orix snapped a three-game losing streak with some help from Stefen Romero and Steven Moya.

“His pitches moved OK, but he lacked control,” manager Kimiyasu Kudo said of his top pitcher. “Next time, I expect he won’t make so many mistakes.”

Senga struck out eight over seven innings and now leads both leagues with 154 strikeouts.

Moya doubled in the third and scored from third on an error after Senga had trouble handling a smash off Romero’s bat. Romero homered in the sixth, and Moya singled in a run in the seventh.

Game highlights are HERE.

Central League

Tigers 4, Giants 2

At Tokyo Dome, Yangervis Solarte made his Japan debut, batting second and playing shortstop for Hanshin. He broke a 2-2 tie in the seventh with a two-run home run, and went 1-for-4 with a walk.

Jefry Marte singled and scored as Hanshin took a 2-0, second-inning lead against Yomiuri ace Tomoyuki Sugano. Pierce Johnson struck out two in a scoreless seventh, while Kyuji Fujikawa worked the ninth to save his first game of the season.

Game highlights are HERE.

Carp 12, Swallows 3

At Jingu Stadium, Hiroshima scored six runs, five earned, against Yakult lefty Keiji Takahashi (2-4) in three innings with new Carp Takumi Miyoshi homering for the second-straight day.

Kaito Kozono, Hiroshima’s top draft pick last autumn, hit his first career home run, a three-run shot, doubled twice and singled.

The Swallows’ Wladimir Balentien homered for the fifth-straight game.

BayStars 2, Dragons 1

At Nagoya Dome, DeNA’s atypical batting order made the difference as Japan cleanup hitter Yoshitomo Tsutsugo, batting in the No. 2 hole, homered with pitcher Kentaro Taira on board after singling from the No. 8 spot.

Taira (3-2) struck out seven over 6-2/3 innings, while allowing a run on three hits and no walks. The Dragons’ only run came on a Dayan Viciedo homer leading off the seventh.

Dragons starter Yuya Yanagi was the unlucky loser, allowing both runs on four hits and a walk over seven innings. He struck out five but saw his record fall to 9-4

And another diversion down the rabbit hole of Japanese high school baseball…

Team loses as ace pitcher benched for safety’s sake

That’s the front page news in Japan tonight, that 100-mph high school pitcher Roki Sasaki was left on the bench as his Ofunato High School team was eliminated from Japan’s national championship in the final of Iwate Prefecture’s summer tourney.

Sasaki threw 194 pitches in Ofunato’s fourth-round game on Sunday, and pitched again on Wednesday, throwing 129 pitches.

From Day 1, manager Yohei Kokubo has said his players win and lose as a team and it’s not about Sasaki carrying the team — which is the flip side of the philosophy that allowed Kosei Yoshida to throw 1,517 pitches combined between the Akita Prefectural tournament and the national finals according to Nikkan Sports.

Kokubo, who played pro ball in the United States in the independent minors, said that Sasaki’s muscles were still stiff from Wednesday’s game.

At least one reporter at the game demanded to know whether manager Kokubo cared more about Sasaki’s arm than victory, but surprisingly many of the comments on the internet have been supportive of his decision — something I never expected to see.

The times are changing very quickly.

The news of Sasaki not pitching dominated Japan’s sports news broadcasts Thursday night, with many either understanding or supporting manager Kokubo’s decision.

Dice-K’s manager would have pitched Sasaki

Motonori Watanabe, who managed Daisuke Matsuzaka during his extraordinary pitching feats at Koshien in 1998, said he understood manager Kokubo had a tough choice to make but he would have started Sasaki.

“I think the player himself wanted to pitch,” Watanabe told the Asahi Shimbun, the summer nationals’ sponsor. “More than anything, he strived to achieve his ambition of getting to Koshien. High school baseball is about listening to the player and as much as possible allowing him to pursue (his dream).”

In February, the National High School Baseball Federation backed itself into a corner by rejecting Niigata prefectures rules for pitch limits in that federation’s spring tournament. To extricate itself, the national federation named a panel of experts to study what could be done to prevent pitching injuries and included Watanabe on the panel.

After reviewing medical evidence, the panel concluded that pitch limits and mandated rest days would be required, but Watanabe dug in his heels.

“I hope for a broader discussion about what options we have other than instituting limits on the number of pitches,” he said.

Central League

BayStars 6, Tigers 0

At Koshien Stadium, Shota Imanaga (9-5) started out getting by with some mistakes, but picked up the pace from the third inning. He struck out four and walked one in a four-hitter for his second shutout of the season in the win over Hanshin.

“I don’t think Imanaga was in top form, but he still shut us out,” Tigers skipper Akihiro Yano said after a loss in front of 45,000. “This many people came out to see us, you’d think we’d have the courtesy to show them something in our scoring opportunities.”

With the pitcher batting eighth again for DeNA, No. 9 hitter Yamato Maeda twice helped set the table for the top of the order. He drew a leadoff walk in the third and scored on a Jose Lopez single. He followed a two-out ninth-inning single by Imanaga with an RBI double and scored his second run of the game as the top of the order drove in two runs in the four-run ninth.

The BayStars manufactured a run in the sixth, with slugging No. 2 hitter Yoshitomo Tsutsugo drawing a leadoff walk, advancing on an error and a fly out before scoring on a ground out.

Game highlights are HERE.

Swallows 8, Giants 1

At Gifu Nagaragawa Stadium, Hiroki Yamada, one of Yakult’s numerous starting pitching reclamation projects, scattered two walks and six hits to allow just a run over five innings and improve to 3-0 in a win over league-leading Yomiuri.

Taylor Jungmann returned from injury, starting for the first time since May 30 but allowed five runs in 1-2/3 innings.

Wladimir Balentien had an RBI single and homered for the fourth straight game for the Swallows.

Carp 11, Dragons 4

At Mazda Stadium, a day after Hiroshima revealed that manager Koichi Ogata had slapped around outfielder Takayoshi Noma for not running out a pop fly, the Carp changed gears and slapped around Chunichi, handing the Dragons their xth straight loss.

The Carp, who have an eight-game win streak and another of 11 in addition to an 11-game losing streak, have now won x straight.

New Carp Takumi Miyoshi’s first home run in two years, a two-run shot off Enny Romero (6-7) in the second inning opened the scoring. Ryosuke Kikuchi and Seiya Suzuki homered in a three-run fifth to help Yusuke Nomura (4-3) to his win in over a month.

Pacific League

Marines 7, Hawks 4

At Yafuoku Dome, a trio of Lotte hitters homered in the fourth inning off lefty Kotaro Otake (5-4), who, former catcher Motonobu Tanishige pointed out, went away from the successful inside pitching he started with and worked outside — where Shogo Nakamura, Brandon Laird and Seiya Inoue were waiting.

It was Laird’s 29th homer, while Inoue, whose two-run homer in the sixth iced the game, has had two, two-homer games in three nights.

Game highlights are HERE.

Lions 5, Eagles 1

At Rakuten Seimei Park, Japan’s two starting pitchers named Wataru matched up in Sendai, with Seibu’s Wataru Matsumoto (5-2) striking out eight and allowing a run over six innings in the win over Rakuten and Wataru Karashima (6-5).

Ernesto Mejia, making a rare start at DH, went 3-for-3 with an RBI double, a home run and a walk.

The Lions bullpen trio of Katsunori Hirai, Kyle Martin and closer Tatsushi Masuda combined for five strikeouts over the last three innings without allowing a base runner.

Game highlights are HERE.