Kona Takahashi proved you can go home again. He did not get his groove back or earn his first win, but he did do enough for Seibu to get a win in a game he started, while Hiroshima’s Shota Suekane doubled down against Yomiuri, and Nippon Ham watered down the Marines.
Tuesday’s games
Tigers 8, Swallows 3: At Osaka UFO Dome, Hanshin took advantage of early control issues from Kojiro Yoshimura (5-7), who walked in the first run with two outs ahead of Seiya Kinami‘s two-run double. Tigers starter Hiroto Saiki (10-3) cruised through seven innings, allowing three hits and two walks and leaving with a 4-0 lead.
“I couldn’t get ahead in the count in the first,” Yoshimura said. “I was too careful. I should have been more aggressive.”
Eagles 3, Hawks 0: At Miyagi Stadium, Takahisa Hayakawa (9-4) survived a couple of jams, starting when Kenta Imamiya was thrown out to end the Hawks’ first trying to score from first on a Hotaka Yamakawa double — thanks to a crackerjack relay from shortstop Kazuki Murabayashi.
Maikel Franco opened the scoring with a two-run second-inning home run, his seventh, off Livan Moinelo (9-4). Hayakawa left the bases loaded in the third and rookie Daisuke Nakajima doubled in a fourth-inning insurance run. Moinelo left after five, and the Hawks bullpen locked the barn door after the Eagles had escaped. Takahiro Norimoto saved his 24th game.
“I really couldn’t handle that forkball from him (Hayakawa) tonight,” Yamakawa said. “The best I could do was poke at the ball and hope for the best.”
The nine wins are the most Hayakawa has recorded since his 2021 rookie season.
“I can’t let 10 wins be any more than just a milestone marker on my journey,” the lefty said. “Norimoto-san has been telling me all along that I could win 15, provided I set my goals high enough.”
It was the first time the Hawks had been shutout in a month.
Fighters 5, Marines 3: At Chiba Marine Stadium, Shun Mizutani opened the game with his first career “leadoff homer” and Tatsuki Mizuno led off the Fighters’ three-run third with a homer, as the Fighters rained on the parade of Lotte lefty Kazuya Ojima (8-9). Kotaro Kiyomiya capped the third by tripling in a run. A Gregory Polanco RBI single capped a two-run Marines third. Franmil Reyes doubled in Nippon Ham’s fifth run in the fifth, and Polanco doubled and scored for Lotte in the home half on a Neftali Soto single off Shoma Kanemura (6-5). The Marines fell a full game behind the second-place Fighters, who are 12 back of SoftBank.
Asked about his breakout season with the Fighters after he escaped SoftBank’s minor league team though December’s active-player draft, Shimizu, this year’s interleague MVP, said, “I’m not thinking too deeply about it. I only want to contribute if I’m given a chance.”
BayStars 4, Dragons 2: At Yokohama Stadium, Hiroto Takahashi (19-2) lost for the first time since June 28, allowing four runs on four walks and eight hits over 6-2/3 innings. Shugo Maki and Yasutaka Tobashira each singled in a first-inning run after two were out in the first, and former Dragon Yota Kyoda broke a 2-2 tie in the third with an RBI single.
Carp 8, Giants 3: At Tokyo Ugly Dome, Shota Suekane snapped an 0-for-26 streak with three straight hits over the first four innings including a two-run first-inning RBI double down the third base line, and three-run double down the third-base line in the fourth, after Giants starter Iori Yamasaki (8-5) nearly escaped the five-run inning without a run scoring. Yamasaki went ahead 2-0 to Kaito Kozono with two outs and the bases loaded but walked him on six pitches before Suekane smacked a pitch past third and into the left-field corner.
“That bases-loaded walk was huge,” Carp manager Takahiro Arai said.
Kozono said, “I fell behind because I swung at two pitches out of the zone. After that I settled down.
Carp starting pitcher Masato Morishita (10-4) went 1-for-3 and scored a run in the fourth while allowing three runs over five innings. Kazuma Okamoto hit a solo homer for the Giants in the second, his 19th.
Lions 1, Buffaloes 0: At Maebashi Stadium, pitching in Gunma Prefecture where he became a high school star, Lions ace Kona Takahashi stranded a corral-full of Buffaloes on base, allowing seven hits but no walks over five innings, as Orix stranded nine runners.
“It’s been quite a while since I’ve been able to hang in there so tough,” said Takahashi, who is 0-9 since the Lions turned down his request to be posted last winter, but this time he was returning to the ballpark where in 2013 he threw a shutout to clinch the prefectural tournament and send his school to Koshien.
“I have good memories of pitching here. The cheers I got from the fans here when I came out brought me to the verge of tears.”
The Lions managed just two walks and four hits, three by Ryusei Sato, who singled in Daiju Nomura with the game’s only run in the seventh.
“We had 10 hits but couldn’t get a run in,” Orix manager Satoshi Nakajima. “That’s been an issue. We haven’t been scoring unless it’s been on a home run.”
