Monday is usually an off day, but the Rakuten Eagles and Lotte Marines played a makeup game.

Marines 8, Eagles 1

At Rakuten Seimei Park, former Lotte closer Yuji Nishino (1-1) won his second straight start, going five scoreless innings and facing 19 batters at the same park where he last started and won on Sept. 30, 2017.

Seiya Inoue opened the scoring with a third-inning leadoff homer against Rakuten’s Shoma Fujihira (0-1), who couldn’t find his control and loaded the bases with no outs in a two-run Lotte fourth.

News

NPB to consider version of Rule 5 Draft

Nippon Professional Baseball’s executive committee and board of directors met on Monday in Tokyo and presented a concrete plan to the teams for the introduction of an active player draft similar in respects to Major League Baseball’s Rule 5 Draft of players not on 40-man rosters.

Atsushi Ihara, NPB’s secretary general, said it is now up to the parties to study the proposal that would allow players on NPB’s 70-man rosters with scant opportunities for playing time to move to other clubs.

Monday’s proposal is for a draft to be held every two years.

Such a draft is something the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association has been pushing for years, in addition to shortened requirements for free agency (currently nine years to qualify for unlimited international filing rights) and player rental, and minor league free agency.