Fifteen strikeouts, a three-hitter, and a couple of nail-biters. Not bad for a Friday with just three games.
Friday’s games
Eagles 6, Hawks 5: At Miyagi Stadium, Kohei Arihara (3-1), who had given up all three of his runs this year on three solo home runs, diversified his portfolio as the Eagles hitters took early batting practice against him. Arihara retired the first two batters he faced in the game, only for the next six to reach. Maikel Franco popped the cork on the five-run inning with an RBI single. Ryosuke Tatsumi singled in another and Yukiya Ito capped it with a three-run shot.
Franco homered to make it 6-0 in the third, as Takahiro Norimoto (4-4) pitched out of a couple of early scrapes. Then suddenly, SoftBank got back in it. Akira Nakamura doubled and scored in the fifth on a Kensuke Kondo single.
Ryoya Kurihara made it 6-2 with a sixth-inning homer, before three walks loaded the bases with two out. Another Kondo single made it 6-3 and Yuki Yanagita‘s third hit of the game made it 6-5, but there it would stay even after Kondo and Yanagita reached in the ninth against Yuki Matsui , who closed out his 18th save by striking out Kurihara.
Deniers 2, Giants 1: At Tokyo Dome, Shota Imanaga (6-1) outdueled Shosei Togo (8-2) as DeNA moved to within a game of the Central League’s Hanshin Tigers, whose game with Yakult was rained out.
Imanaga surrendered a second-inning leadoff homer to Kazumoto Okamoto, his NPB-leading 20th, but just six other hits over seven innings while striking out a franchise-record 15 and walking none. DeNA tied it in the third on a hit batsman, a Taiki Sekine double and a Keita Sano sac fly.
Togo stranded two runners in the fifth inning, but surrendered Yasutaka Tobashira‘s one-out solo home run in the seventh. Imanaga’s biggest test of the ninth came in the same inning, when the Giants put the go-ahead run in scoring position on two singles and a sacrifice, only for the lefty to strike out his 14th and 15th strikeouts and exit stage right.
“He used all he had to get out of the seventh inning, so I figured that was enough for him,” DeNA manager Daisuke Miura said.
Hiromu Ise retired the top of the Giants order in the eighth, and closer Yasuaki Yamasaki secured his 19th save after two runners reached, on a hit and an error.
The game was Imanaga’s first against the Giants this year, and it marked the first time he had pitched and Okamoto had homered in the same game since Imanaga started and won March’s World Baseball Classic final.
Dragons 8, Carp 0: At Nagoya Dome, Shinnosuke Ogasawara (5-5) threw a 102-pitch three-hitter in which he walked two but thanks to three double plays faced just two batters over the minimum.
Offensively, a pair of new Dragons made Carp starter Allen Kuri’s evening miserable. Seiya Hosokawa broke the ice in the first after Kuri (6-4) retired the first two batters. Singles by Dayan Viciedo and Takaya Ishikawa, and a Shingo Usami walk loaded the bases, and Hosokawa singled in two on the first pitch he saw.
Usami and Hosokawa singled and scored in the Dragons’ three-run fourth and each doubled in a run in the two-run fifth.
