Masahiro Tanaka‘s first time back at Koshien Stadium as a Giant was put on hold until at least Thursday, when his scheduled start was rained out.
Still, there was a lot to see on Wednesday, with defensive lowlights in Osaka, highlights in Nagoya, a nail-biter in Fukuoka and a rainy slugfest in Chiba, while the Dragons lose their main home run threat.
Wednesday’s games
Buffaloes 3, Lions 1: Orix’s Anderson Espinoza struck out a season-high eight over six scoreless innings to earn his third win and his second over Seibu. The Buffaloes made it 2-0 in the fifth when Masahiro Nishino singled and scored from first when Lions right-fielder Alexander Canario played a single into a triple. Orix made it 3-0 in the sixth when Haruto Watanabe reached for the second time, stole second and scored when left-fielder Yuta Nakami took a tumble while chasing a tough one-out fly.
Losing pitcher Kona Takahashi said, “The instant the ball is out of my hand, events are beyond my control. Various things happened, and that’s part of baseball, too. All things considered, I did well to limit the damage to the bare minimum. Things could easily have gone the other way, so I’m not discouraged.”
With closer Andres Machado getting the night off and not on the bench, set-up man Ren Kusunoki worked around a leadoff walk to record his first career save.
Carp 5, Dragons 2: Much of the Carp pitching in this game was not pitching but defense. With Hiroshima’s Ryoji Kuribayashi protecting a 1-0 fifth-inning lead, center fielder Minoru Omori made a leaping catch of a drive to prevent a run. Three straight one-out doubles in the top of the sixth by Ryosuke Kikuchi, Kaito Kozono and Elehuris Montero made it 3-0. Chunichi chased Kuribayashi in the seventh on a Yutaro Itayama RBI single and a pinch-hit double by Toshiki Abe in his first RBI for the Dragons since 2022. Montero homered to plate Kikuchi in the eighth to make it 5-2, and Shota Nakazaki got the save in the ninth thanks to some brilliant defending at second by 10-time Golden Glove-winner Kikuchi to start a double play, and a tremendous game-ending catch in center by Omori.
The Dragons’ Kyle Muller made his first start of the season, and allowed three runs, two earned, with his errant glove toss on an infield single allowing a run to score. The lefty lost it, and while the ball was in play, he slammed his glove to the turf, taking himself out of the action.
Manager Kazuki Inoue criticized the lapse of control and suggested Muller needed to hold runners better.
“More than the hits, it was the mistakes,” Inoue said. “Slamming your glove during play is out of the question. There’s still more to come after that moment. Saying he was just fired up is only a consolation. I wanted him to stay composed. And once runners got on, they were stealing bases far too easily. I want him to learn from that and address those issues.”
Eagles 3, Hawks 2: Rakuten’s Fumiya Kurokawa doubled in Ryosuke Tatsumi in the first for a 1-0 lead before Kensuke Kondo singled, stole second – his first since he stole 11 in 2024 – and tied it on a Hotaka Yamakawa single. Tatsumi reached base for the third time with a tie-breaking fifth-inning RBI single before the Hawks bounced back to retie it when a Yamakawa leadoff walk, a Taisei Makihara single and a sacrifice set up a run to score on a grounder to second. Reliever Sung Chia-hao took over, got a fly out to center with his first pitch, and Makihara was easily cut down at the to end the inning. Kazuki Murabayashi homered in the eighth and six of the last seven Hawks were retired.
Sung became Japanese pro baseball’s 59th one-pitch winner, the third import and the first since current MLB broadcaster C.J. Nitkowski managed the feat with the Hawks in 2007.
Marines 9, Fighters 7: Lotte won a rainy slugfest in Chiba as Misho Nishikawa tied it 5-5 in the third with a three-run homer after the visitors overcame a 2-0 first-inning deficit. Nishikawa then capped a three-run fourth with a two-run double. Chusei Mannami hit his Pacific League-leading sixth homer with none on in the fifth, and Franmil Reyes added a solo shot, his third homer, in the seventh. Nippon Ham now has 30 homers from 16 games and more than the next two NPB teams combined.
Dragons lose Sano with muscle strain
First-year Dragon Miguel Sano will be out for a month to six weeks with a muscle strain, Chunichi manager Inoue said Wednesday. Sano was hurt in the first inning of Tuesday’s game when he was caught in a rundown between first and second. Sano currently leads the Dragons with three home runs.
