The SoftBank Hawks moved to within one win of the team’s eighth interleague championship with a come-from-behind win over the Yomiuri Giants, who dropped a game back in the chase with the two clubs playing their final two games at Tokyo Dome on Saturday and Sunday.

With the two leagues splitting Friday’s four games, the PL on Saturday can wrap up the overall interleague win lead for the 14th time in 15 seasons. The PL now leads 51-39, and can own this year’s bragging rights with three more wins.

Of course, interleague is just part of the journey, and it doesn’t really matter which league wins it. Without interleague to brag about, the PL would have to fall back on the Japan Series, which it has only won 11 times over the past 14 seasons.

Interleague

Hawks 8, Giants 3

At Tokyo Dome, Shuhei Fukuda hit a grand slam off a former teammate and Kodai Senga reached double digits in strikeouts for the first time since April 27.

Senga (7-2) allowed two runs seven hits and four walks over six innings after striking his way out of a no-out, bases-loaded pinch in the second.

Yoshihiro Maru, who drove in all four of the Giants’ runs in Friday’s 4-2 win over Orix had three hits off Senga and scored both runs, one on an RBI single by Giants elder statesman Shinnosuke Abe and the other on his 13th home run.

Giants starter Cristopher Mercedes (5-3) cruised through five innings before giving up Seiji Uebayashi’s leadoff homer in the sixth and back-to-back two-out singles to Cubans Alfredo Despaigne and Yurisbel Gracial.

Rysuke Miyaguni walked the bases loaded and Carp catcher Takuya Kai slid headfirst to beat out an RBI bunt single to tie the game 2-2, and former Hawks side-armer Masahiko Morifuku came in and threw four sliders to the left-handed-hitting Fukuda, who slammed a fat 2-1 pitch way back into the right field stands.

Marines 12, Swallows 3

At Jingu Stadium, both clubs had a first-inning leadoff homer for the 14th time in NPB history as Lotte’s Takashi Ogino went deep off David Buchanan (1-5) and Yakult’s Tetsuto Yamada did the same to Kota Futaki in the bottom of the inning.

Ogino singled in a run in the fourth and doubled in another in the Marines’ seven-run fifth.

Futaki (5-5) twice allowed the Swallows to tie it, in the first on Yamada’s homer and in the second on a pair of singles and a wild pitch. The right-hander allowed three runs on four hits, a walk and a hit batsman, while striking out eight.

Yamada has now homered off of all 11 opposing NPB teams this season, a feat he also accomplished in 2016.

BayStars 3, Eagles 2

At Yokohama Stadium, Yamato Maeda hit his second sayonara double in three days, lifting DeNA over Rakuten.

BayStars’ starter Shota Imanaga struck out 12 over seven innings, but blew his 2-0 lead in the sixth inning on Hiroaki Shimauchi’s leadoff homer, a one-out walk to Jabari Blash and a two-out Zelous Wheeler double.

Eagles lefty Wataru Karashima allowed only two hits through five innings but both cleared the wall in Yokohama. Kazuki Kamizato opened the home half of the first with his sixth home run, while former Mariner Jose Lopez hit shots down the right-field line on consecutive pitches. The First sliced foul, while the second stayed fair for his 13th home run.

Edwin Escobar (3-2) pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to earn the win after Toshiro Miyazaki battled Rakuten’s Alan Busenitz (1-1) for a one-out walk to set the table for Maeda.

Dragons 4, Fighters 2

At Nagoya Dome, Shuhei Takahashi continued his torrid hitting with a three-run, first-inning homer off Kohei Arihara (8-3), who had not allowed a homer in his first three interleague starts, all wins for the right-hander.

Yuya Yanagi (8-2) allowed a run over seven innings on six hits and a walk, while striking out six. He’s now won five straight starts. Lefty Joely Rodriguez and right-hander Raidel Martinez, each struck out two batters in a scoreless inning to close it out for the Dragons.

Tigers 5, Lions 3

At Koshien Stadium, Deunte Heath inherited a no-out, two-on predicament in the seventh inning and struck out three but not before he’d loaded the bases with a walk and hit Ryutaro Umeno to force in the go-ahead run.

Kento Itohara, who singled to open the seventh and scored the go-ahead run, singled in an insurance run in the ninth, while Rafael Dolis worked a 1-2-3 ninth to record his 14th save.

Buffaloes 5, Carp 4

At Mazda Stadium, with both team’s closers sitting on the farm team due to lack of effectiveness, Orix won a battle of understudies against Hiroshima.

With Geronimo Franzua (5-3) on the mound, rookie Kaito Kozono’s error allowed the tying run to reach with one out in the ninth, and Masataka Yoshida followed with his 12th homer of the season.

Carp lefty Kyle Regnault survived a game of Russian roulette in the eighth, when he loaded the bases with one out, and another first-year import, Tyler Eppler (3-2) worked a scoreless eighth for the Buffaloes.

Brandon Dickson earned his second save in two opportunities to wrap it up for Orix.

News

Matsuzaka goes 6 in 3rd rehab game

Daisuke Matsuzaka inched closer toward pitching for the Chunichi Dragons’ top team after his throwing 108 pitches in a six-inning rehab start on Friday at Nagoya Stadium. Here’s the Sankei Sports story.

The 38-year-old, who suffered right shoulder inflammation in February when a fan gave him a high five, was pitching for the third time this year.

Fans lined up early to see Matsuzaka, who allowed two runs on seven hits with two strikeouts with his fastball maxing out 139 KPH (86.4 MPH). The right-hander was NPB’s comeback player of the year in 2018, when he went 6-4 after pitching in just one game the previous three seasons when he was with the SoftBank Hawks.

Giants on track to acquire D’Backs’ De La Rosa

According to Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic, right-hander Rubby De La Rosa is headed to Japan to play for the Yomiuri Giants.

A year ago, the Giants appeared solid in the bullpen with Arquimedes Caminero as their closer and bulldog Scott Mathieson as their principle set up guy. But Mathieson had season-ending knee surgery in August and Caminero struggled. This year, Mathieson was slowed by a bacterial infection and only recently returned to the first team, when he suffered a minor adductor muscle strain.

Ryan Cook was expected to close, but the right-hander has felt discomfort in his surgically repaired right elbow. He returned to action this past week.

The Giants have not won a Central League pennant since 2014 — equaling the franchise record for consecutive seasons without a pennant.

The Pacific League won four of Wednesday’s six interleague games by a margin of 34 runs to 22 as the three-time defending Central League champion Hiroshima Carp clinched a losing record against the PL for the second straight season.

Elsewhere, longtime Buffaloes starter Brandon Dickson saves the day as Orix holds on to beat the Giants on the road, while Japan’s all-time interleague big bopper Takeya Nakamura takes the Chunichi Dragons to the woodshed in a game where there was controversy over a sacrifice bunt.

Interleague

Marines 6, Carp 3

At Mazda Stadium, Brandon Laird hit his 20th home run, one of four solo shots Lotte hit off Daichi Osera (6-4) as rookie right-hander Daiki Iwashita (3-1) went seven-plus innings for the win over Hiroshima.

Osera lacked consistent command of his cutter and allowed six runs, four earned, on eight hits over six-plus innings. He struck out four.

“The life on my fastball was not that bad but my location was off to guys who make their living hitting fastballs,” Osera said.

Iwashita, too, had trouble with his big out pitch, the splitter, but made up for it by locating his fastball. The rookie allowed three runs on five hits and a walk, while striking out five. Yuki Karakawa and Naoya Masuda each retired three batters to end it.

Buffaloes 4, Giants 3

At Tokyo Dome, Brandon Dickson got two-time reigning CL MVP Yoshihiro Maru to fly out with the tying run on third base and record his first pro save in 11 years as Orix held on to beat Yomiuri.

Moments after the Giants tied the game on a two-run, seventh-inning, pinch-hit home run by Hiroyuki Nakajima, who had just been called up that day, Yuya Oda broke the 3-3 tie in the top of the eighth with a sacrifice fly. Oda also doubled in a run in the Buffaloes’ two-run fourth.

Reliever Ryan Cook (0-2), pitching for the first time since being being deactivated on April 23 with discomfort in his right elbow, loaded the bases on two singles and a walk, setting up Oda for a sacrifice fly.

Dickson, on the hot seat after the Buffaloes deactivated closer Hirotoshi Masui, issued a leadoff walk to Yang Dai-kang to open the ninth, and with two outs walked Hayato Sakamoto with first base open. The save was Dickson’s first as a pro since he saved a game in the Cardinals’ minor league system in 2008.

Swallows 3, Hawks 2

At Jingu Stadium, Yasuhiro Ogawa (2-8) allowed two runs over seven innings, his best start since his last victory on May 3, as Yakult scored early and held on to beat SoftBank.

Tetsuto Yamada tripled to open the game and scored on a Norichika Aoki single before Wladimir Balentien hit his 14th home run of the season to give Yakult a 3-0, first-inning lead against Robert Suarez (0-3).

Ogawa matched his season-low with four hits. He walked two while equaling his season high of seven strikeouts.

BayStars 7, Fighters 6

At Yokohama Stadium, Yamato Maeda doubled home pinch runner Tomo Otosaka with the winning run in the ninth inning after Jose Lopez led off the inning with his second single of the game as DeNA came from behind to beat Nippon Ham.

Neftali Soto brought the BayStars back from a 4-23 deficit with his 21st home run, a fifth-inning, three-run shot.

BayStars lefty Edwin Escobar (2-1), who first came to Japan with the Fighters in 2017 before being traded that year to DeNA, struck out two to work around a walk and a single in a scoreless ninth and earn the win.

Lions 5, Dragons 2

At Nagoya Dome, career interleague RBI leader Takeya Nakamura tied the game with a two-run homer and broke the 2-2 tie with a two-run, ninth-inning single off Yudai Ono (4-5) as Seibu came from behind to beat Chunichi.

The Dragons’ Shuhei Takahashi led off with a single in the second and a double in the fourth, and was driven in both times by the No. 8 hitter, catcher Takuma Kato, who squeezed in the first run and singled in the second.

Nakamura tied it in the seventh with his 11th home run and his second in two nights. Ono had allowed just an infield single to Nakamura and a walk through six innings, before giving up Shota Sotozaki’s leadoff double in the seventh.

Still on the mound in the ninth, Ono surrendered a Sosuke Genda leadoff single. After a sacrifice, Japan home run leader Hotaka Yamakawa was walked intentionally, and Tomoya Mori walked to load the bases for Nakamura.

The inning had some controversy when Sotozaki sacrificed Genda to second. He bunted the ball straight down onto the plate and it appeared to hit the bat on the rebound.

On the principle that if the sacrifice bunt is no longer sacred then people in Japan ought to quit playing baseball, Dragons skipper Tsuyoshi Yoda was incensed that his request for a video review was refused, and the club has said it will file an objection.

Lions closer Tatsushi Masuda worked around a leadoff walk and an error to record his 11th save.

Eagles 9, Tigers 4

At Koshien Stadium, Rakuten rookie Ryosuke Tatsumi broke a 4-4 tie with a one-out, bases-loaded single in the ninth inning as the Eagles came from behind to beat Hanshin.

The Tigers jumped out in front on Yusuke Oyama’s three-run, first-inning home run.

Jabari Blash homered for the Eagles in the second and singled in a run in the fifth that tied it 4-4. He also opened the ninth with his second walk of the game.

News

Mathieson deactivated with slight strain

Yomiuri Giants reliever Scott Mathieson was deactivated on Wednesday, a day after he left a game against the Orix Buffaloes with a slight right adductor strain. The 35-year-old, who is coming back from knee surgery and a bacterial infection, has pitched in four games this season. He is expected to make a quick recovery.

Mathieson is in his eighth season with the Giants. He has 53 saves and 169 holds over that stretch and is one of the team’s captains. Last season he was limited to 34 games, his fewest since arriving in Japan in 2012.

Fighters’ Uwasawa, Buffaloes’ Fushimi out for long haul

Nippon Ham Fighters right-hander Naoyuki Uwasawa is out indefinitely since a line drive off the bat of the DeNA BayStars’ Neftali Soto fractured his left kneecap.

In Tokyo, the Orix Buffaloes lost the use of reserve catcher Torai Fushima, who ruptured the Achilles tendon in his left ankle while batting in the top of the ninth inning. He has been replaced on the active roster by 36-year-old catcher Katsuki Yamazaki.