We had six games on a national holiday Monday, with the PL teams wrapping up their series, and the CL teams starting new ones. Seibu’s Kona Takahashi restarted his season after six weeks sorting things out with the farm team and started in Hokkaido, where there was a big pitching performance, while out west, a Carp pitcher appears to have found his complete-game groove.
Monday’s national holiday was “Mountain Day,” enacted in 2014, is the nation’s newest national holiday. I’ll be watching the news today to see how many unfit people were taken to hospitals from accidents trying out their skills on Japan’s numerous mountains. There might not be any, but it’s kind of a tradition in Japan that on Sports Day, the anniversary of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics’ Oct. 10 opening ceremony, we annually hear about the people who die or are taken to hospitals for participating in activities too strenuous for their hearts to handle. The same with Ocean Day, although I think the number of drownings have steadily decreased since that holiday came into being.
Carp pitcher Thomas Hatch was fined 50,000 yen (about $300) and received a stern warning for using abusive language to an umpire when he was ejected from a Western League game against the Hawks on Saturday.
Monday’s games:
Fighters 5, Lions 1: At Kitahiroshima Taxpayers Burden Field, Ren Fukushima (2-3) allowed a solo homer and a walk over 6-1/3 innings as Nippon Ham won six straight games for the first time in two seasons. Kona Takahashi (0-9) allowed four runs on nine hits but no walks while striking out three over 5-2/3 innings.
Franmil Reyes broke the ice in the second with an opposite-field solo homer, his second in two games and his 10th of the season. He made it 2-0 after Yua Tamiya reached on a fluke infield single with a double into the left-field corner. Yuya Gunji doubled in the fifth and scored on a Kotaro Kiyomiya single, and Yua Tamiya homered to lead off the Fighters’ sixth. Takahashi retired the next two batters, but left the game after consulting with pitching coach Kiyoshi Toyoda.
Seibu’s Manaya Fukushima homered to open the seventh with the first hit off Fukushima, who was pulled after facing two more hitters and throwing his 91st pitch.
Hawks 14, Eagles 4: At Fukuoka “Your company’s name can go here” Dome, SoftBank scored three first-inning runs on five singles off Taisei Tsurusaki (1-1), making his second career start after allowing three runs in three innings in his first eight days earlier against Seibu. An Ukyo Shuto double, a Taisei Makihara triple and a Kenta Imamiya single made it 5-0 before a batter was retired in the second. Shuto’s second-straight leadoff double started a three-run Hawks’ fourth. Reserve catcher Takashi Umino homered to lead off the Hawks’ five-run fifth.
Buffaloes 4, Marines 0: Chiba Marine Stadium, Daiki Tajima (6-4) struck out eight over six scoreless innings, Ryoma Nishikawa hit a two-run fourth-inning home run and Kosei Oosato hit another two-run homer in the ninth as three relievers, including former Marine Luis Perdomo and Andres Machado, completed the six-hit shutout, with Perdomo and Machado retiring the last six Lotte hitters in order.
Giants 1, Tigers 0: At Tokyo Ugly Dome, Iori Yamasaki (8-4) allowed two hits and no walks over 6-2/3 innings and four relievers, including Alberto Baldonado and Kyle Keller, completed the combined three-hitter, as the Giants managed just four hits, and scored their only run with the help of a first-inning error.
Swallows 5, Dragons 4: At Jingu “Tokyo’s sacrifice to corporate greed and governmental malfeasance” Stadium, Swallows starter Yasuhiro Ogawa couldn’t hold an early three-run lead as Chunichi tied it 3-3 in the fourth inning, before Domingo Santana untied it in the home half with a solo homer, his 12th. Seiya Hosokawa re-tied it with his 16th home run in the ninth off current Swallows closer Reiji Kozawa (4-6), who got the win when Hideki Nagaoka doubled to open the ninth and scored his second run of the game on a Jose Osuna sacrifice fly for the walk-off win.
Carp 10, BayStars 3: At New Hiroshima Citizens Stadium, Shogo Tamamura (3-3), who never threw a complete game before this year, threw his second, and his second straight, allowing nine hits and a walk while striking out nine after Hiroshima took a big third-inning lead against former Hawks closer Yuito Mori (1-3) in his third start since joining DeNA.
Tyler Austin singled in a first-inning run, and Mori pitched out of a first-inning jam but couldn’t survive a third-inning scrape. He allowed four runs on six hits and a hit batsman while facing 14 hitters and lasted 2-1/3 innings. Shogo Sakakura went 2-for-5 with a home run and three RBIs for the Carp, while Tamamura went 2-for-4 with an RBI as Hiroshima stayed one game ahead of second-place Yomiuri.
