There is one unbeaten team left through the first week of the Nippon Professional Baseball season, and it’s the only one of NPB’s 12 teams without a sacrifice so far, while one team has more homers than the next two teams put together.
Thursday’s games
Swallows 2, Carp 1: Hiroshima took a 1-0 lead in the seventh as Shun Okamoto outdueled Yasunobu Okugawa for seven innings on a windy night in Tokyo. Shogo Sakakura doubled and scored on a Minoru Omori single. After a 1-2-3 inning of relief from Taylor Hearn, the Swallows put together some good at-bats against Daisuke Moriyasu. Jose Osuna singled with one out, pinch-runner Yoshihiro Akahane stole second. With two outs and runners on second and third, Ryui Ito hit a grounder that came off the glove of third baseman Tai Sasaki and into no-man’s land for a two-run sayonara infield single.
Fighters 7, Marines 1: Nippon Ham continues to put the ball over the wall, hitting three in their second win of the season, giving them 16 from six games. The next two teams in the home run count are the Hawks with seven and the Giants with five. Takayuki Kato was the benefactor of the long-ball largesse, leaving with a 6-0 lead after allowing just four hits through six innings. Yuki James Nomura hit his second to open the scoring, while Taiki Narama and Yushi Shimizu each hit his first of the year with a man on.
Eagles 5, Hawks 4: José Ureña needed 102 pitches to get through five innings in his Japan debut. He allowed two runs and left with the game tied 2-2. Rakuten’s Itsuki Murabayashi‘s seventh-inning solo homer broke the tie. He had four hits, including a two-run eighth-inning double that put the Eagles back in front after Hotaka Yamakawa‘s eighth-inning solo shot re-tied it 3-3. The loss was the Hawks’ first of the season.
Dragons 2, Giants 1: Takahiro Norimoto made his Yomiuri debut as the second former Rakuten Eagles ace in the Giants rotation, allowing a two-run Miguel Sano homer to come out on the losing end of a Yudai Ono complete-game victory. Ono did not allow a walk or a hit batsman over the distance, for his first “mushikyu” in four seasons. Ono threw 111 pitches, and Chunichi manager Kazuki Inoue said he left him in for the ninth with a chance at a shutout because, the 37-year-old “told me he wanted to keep pitching.”
Buffaloes 7, Lions 3: Hiroya Miyagi bounced back from getting shelled on Opening Day, allowing three runs over six innings and striking out eight, while Keita Nakagawa had three hits including a three-run sixth-inning homer.
Tigers 4, BayStars 3: Seiya Kinami capped a three-run first with a two-run single as Hanshin jumped out to a 4-0 second-inning lead and held on to beat DeNA.
