A typhoon is barreling toward Tokyo and northeastern Japan and resulted in three of Friday’s games being canceled, but all three Pacific League games on the schedule were played. Roki Sasaki made news with a 1-1/3-inning start, and after the Seibu Lions snapped his four-game home run streak on Tuesday, Hotaka Yamakawa made up for lost time with some old-time power at the world’s largest outdoor sauna.
Meanwhile, the Nippon Ham Fighters have decided that their home park outside Hiroshima will have its infield grass replaced with artificial turf next season, ostensibly while keeping the existing dirt and the natural grass outfield.
Thursday’s games
Fighters 6, Marines 1: At Kitahiroshima Taxpayers Burden Field, Roki Sasaki took a smash off his left ankle with one out in the second inning and was unable to resume pitching. Fighters lefty Takayuki Kato, on the other hand, got a six-run third-inning lead and hung in for eight innings to improve to 6-7. Sasaki left for treatment, returned to the mound and made some practice tosses, so the injury does not appear that serious.
Tatsuki Mizuno, one of the two Fighters who laid down beautiful suicide squeeze bunts the night before, went long in the bottom of the third with a two-run homer, his fourth. Ariel Martinez singled in Go Matsumoto to make it 3-0 and Franmil Reyes hit his fourth home run in five games to make it 6-0. Takashi Ogino had three of Lotte’s nine hits and the Marines’ only extra-base hit, a seventh-inning RBI double. Lotte fell a full game back of Nippon Ham in third place.
Lions 9, Hawks 2: At the domed stadium formerly known as “Prince,” Hotaka Yamakawa hit a two-run second-inning homer off submariner Kaito Yoza (1-3), and that wasn’t the ballgame, but Lions interim skipper Hisanobu Watanabe was certain it didn’t help.
“When you’re facing a batter who is in such good form, you can’t be as casual as he appeared to be,” Watanabe said.
Former Hawk Daiju Nomura doubled and scored in the second to make it a one-run game but that was as close as Seibu would get. Tatsuru Yanagimachi belted a two-run homer in the third for the Hawks, and Seibu’s last run came in the home half on catcher Yuto Koga‘s third homer, off Hawks starter Shuta Ishikawa, who was gone after three.
Yamakawa hit his 25th homer, another two-run shot in the fifth. Yanagimachi doubled in a run in the seventh and was aboard for Yamakawa’s final two-run dinger.
It was the first time in seven years that Yamakawa had belted three in a game. The second Hawks pitcher into the game, rookie Ryo Oyama (1-0) pitched two scoreless innings and earned his first career win. Since Japanese hero-interview etiquette requires that pitchers who earn their first career wins do hero interviews so they can be asked what they intend to do with the winning ball, and can answer “give it to my parents,” Yamakawa didn’t get to speak to the fans after the game.
Buffaloes 3, Eagles 2: At Osaka UFO Dome, Rakuten wasted a good start from Takayuki Kishi, who allowed a run on four hits and a walk over six innings, as Orix came back with a run in the eighth and one in the ninth to walk it off and avoid a three-game sweep.
