Saturday we had a special matchup between a former frontline MLB pitcher and Cy Young Award winner, and a guy who was a top U.S. amateur prospect that turned pro in Japan and is now turning into something special. Such was Dallas Keuchel’s introduction to Japanese pro baseball.

Elsewhere, the failure to defend against some heads-up base running cost a pennant contender a win, a pitcher with high expectations heaped on his shoulders won for the first time in over two months, while we had a rare bench-clearing showdown.

Off the field, the Dragons deactivated pitcher Shinnosuke Ogasawara after his abbreviated start on Friday.

I also owe readers a slight apology since yesterday’s Hawks-Marines game was mistakenly said to have taken place in Kitahiroshima, Hokkaido, instead of at Fukuoka Dome in naming rights iteration No. 4.

In other stuff, I am back doing what I did from 2006 to 2020, crunching data from websites and making sense of it. And the first thing that came out of that was a look at called strikes and what they tell us about the teams that get more of them than others.

Saturday’s games

Buffaloes 3, Fighters 0: At Osaka UFO Dome, Hiroya Miyagi, expected to be the ace of the Orix Buffaloes staff this year following the departure of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, earned his first win since June 27 to improve to 4-8 as he allowed three singles and a walk, with no Fighters runner getting as far as third base.

“I had times when my tempo was just too good, and would have times when I was just terrible,” said Miyagi, who had his good fastball, while regularly locating his breaking pitches on the very edge of the zone.

Miyagi gave up a sizzling single to Shun Mizutani in the first but erased the runner with a double play and kept hot-hitting Kotaro Kiyomiya from hitting the ball out of the infield.

“Miyagi was good today,” Kiyomiya said. “But I wasn’t.”

Tomoya Mori opened the scoring in the fourth with a solo homer off Drew VerHagen (1-1), his eighth. A Kotaro Kurebayashi single, a Keita Nakagawa RBI double and a Masahiro Nishino RBI single completed the scoring in the fifth.

Andres Machado earned his 18th save for the Buffaloes.

Marines 5, Hawks 2: At Fukuoka “Your company’s name can go here” Dome, the big matchup between new MLB veteran Dallas Keuchel and up-and-coming Hawks right-hander Carter Stewart Jr. turned into a draw, although the edge definitely went to the former Cy Young winner for holding Japan’s best-scoring team to two runs over five innings.

The Hawks opened the bottom of the first with four straight line drives, the first of which was caught. Two doubles and a single made it 2-0, but Stewart, whose command has typically been good this year, didn’t have it this time. He allowed just one hit over six innings, but walked four and hit Neftali Soto on the shoulder with a curveball. After a one-out second-inning walk to Gregory Polanco, Shogo Nakamura blasted a high straight fastball well back into the seats in left, tying the game with his third homer. The game remained tied thanks to SoftBank’s ability to rob the Marines of a few hits here and there, but that ended in the eighth. Second baseman Taisei Makhihara lost the handle on a grounder as he went to make his throw for a leadoff error.

A walk, a wild pitch and an intentional walk to Neftali Soto loaded the bases. After a fly out to short, SoftBank employed the “prevent the runner from second from scoring on a ground single” shallow outfield defense against the hitter that Delta Graphs informs us is the most extreme fly-ball hitter in Japanese pro baseball, Polanco, who hit a liner to straight-away center that would have been an easy third out for a center fielder at normal depth, but instead became a three-run double.

It was like going back in time when Hawks manager Hiroki Kokubo managed Samurai Japan in the first Premier12 semifinal against Korea and forgot that he needed to tell his closer to warm up in the ninth inning to protect a three-run lead.

Dragons 5, Tigers 5, 12 innings: At Nagoya Dome, Teruaki Sato went 3-for-6 with a pair of RBI singles to help bail out Shoki Murakami, who issued a career-high five walks and surrendered three runs over 4-2/3 innings.

Hanshin came from behind but blew a two-run lead with two outs in the ninth with closer Suguru Iwazaki on the mound when the defense was unready for some wildly aggressive base running.

Shuhei Takahashi singled in two runs in the first to put the Dragons up 2-1. Hanshin tied it after loading the bases in the third against Humberto Mejia when Ukyo Maegawa drew a walk off lefty Hiroto Fuku. With the game tied 3-3 in the sixth, Koji Chikamoto, who reached base five times, walked with one out, stole second and scored on a Takumu Nakano single off Michael Feliz, whose second wild pitch of the inning put the runner on second for Sato to drive in.

One-out ninth-inning singles by Seiya Hosokawa and Takaya Ishikawa set the table and a pinch-walk by Kenta Bright loaded the bases with two outs. Hiroki Fukunaga pinch-hit and hit a shot deep into the hole at short that Seiya Kinami was unable to control. He scrambled after the ball and relayed it to third, but pinch-runner Goki Oda had been off like a shot from second and never slowed down, so when Sato at third got the ball, there was no play at the plate and the game was tied.

Both teams had chances in extra innings but failed to score.

Swallows 6, Carp 3: At Jingu “Tokyo’s sacrifice to corporate greed and governmental malfeasance” Stadium, Keiji Takahashi (4-7) didn’t have the big strikeouts like he used to, fanning five over seven innings, but allowed just two runs, one earned on four hits, and the Swallows rallied for five runs against Daichi Osera (4-3) in the sixth.

Jose Osuna’s two-run double broke the tie, Naoki Matsumoto singled in another, and Yukihiro Iwata doubled in two more.

Shota Suekane hit a pair of solo homers for the Carp, his eighth and ninth.

Giants 11, BayStars 1: At Yokohama Stadium, Yomiuri pulled into a virtual tie for first place with Hiroshima as Haruto Inoue (6-4) allowed a run on over six innings, and drove in a run in this impressive butt-kicking.

With the game long decided, the Giants Takumi Oshiro was hit squarely between the shoulder blades in the top of the ninth inning and fell to the turf in pain. In the bottom of the inning DeNA’s Yoshitomo Tsutsugo was hit in the ribs.

As Tsutsugo made his way toward first, Tyler Austin came out of the BayStars dugout pointing and shouting, and was restrained by his coaches and teammates as both benches emptied with a minimal of fuss.

The game, and the remaining few pitches left, were played under a warning from the umpires.

Lions 11, Eagles 4: At Miyagi Stadium, Seibu scored 10-plus runs for the first time since April 13, when the Lions clobbered the Hawks of all teams, 11-2 at home. Takayoshi Yamamura’s two-run first-inning double made it 3-0, before the Lions went to town in the second, when the leadoff man reached on an error and the visitors loaded the bases with an infield single and a walk. Sosuke Genda opened the floodgates with the first of his two RBI singles in the inning.

Dragons deactivate Ogasawara

The Chunichi Dragons dropped left-handed starter Shinnosuke Ogasawara from the active roster on Saturday, a day after he took a batted ball near the left elbow in the first inning and did not return for another inning of work in a 2-1 win over the Hanshin Tigers.

“If things go well, we should activate him as soon as possible (10 days). Anyway, we’ll keep an eye on him,” manager Kazuyoshi Tatsunami said.

Ogasawara is 5-8 with a 2.56 ERA in 19 starts this year.