DeNA clinched first place in interleague for the first time in franchise history Tuesday, when the Rakuten Eagles, the last team with a chance to finish 11-7 with a superior figure in the tie-break solution, got hammered 13-0.
The good news is that no one in the media is calling the interleague winning team anything other than champion, which interleague rules explicitly say it is not.
On Monday, DeNA had a chance to clinch first prize but blew a two-run eighth-inning lead on an Ariel Martinez two-run single, Fighters closer Seigi Tanaka (2-1) pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the eighth, Chusei Mannami hit his PL-leading 13th home run off Yasuaki Yamasaki in the 10th for a 4-3 win.
That left DeNA waiting to see if the Eagles could win Tuesday and Wednesday while scoring a huge amount of runs. Perhaps there was a miscommunication among the Eagles, thinking they only needed to play a pair of one-sided games.
Yakult presented that opportunity by throwing a bullpen day at the Eagles, but Yuto Kanakubo threw four hitless innings in his season debut, and four other relievers held Rakuten to two hits, while Jose Osuna cracked a three-run first-inning homer, his 12th, and Soma Uchiyama hit a two-run shot in the five-run inning,
