Our first weekend’s worth of games wrapped up Sunday, when the Nippon Ham Fighters, Lotte Marines and Yomiuri Giants each completed series sweeps. Naoyuki Uwasawa made his Hawks debut only for his nemesis, Neftali Soto, to turn the game Lotte’s way, with Lotte’s go-ahead run scoring on a fluke play. But first, a word from our sponsor.
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Sunday’s games
Fighters 7, Lions 5: At the roofed stadium formerly known as Prince, one long streak ended and another kept rolling.
Nippon Ham opened the season with three straight wins, something no team in the franchise had accomplished since 1962, when the Toei Flyers went on to win the franchise’s first Japan Series. Yuki James Nomura was a wrecking ball, doubling in a first-inning run, hitting a three-run third-inning homer and a two-run shot in the fifth.
Franmil Reyes went 3-for-3 with two doubles, a walk, three runs and an eighth-inning leadoff single that led to the Fighters’ final run after he was pulled for a pinch-runner.
New Lion Tyler Nevin tied the game 1-1 in the first with a sac fly to deep right that Chusei Manami nearly made interesting with a picture-perfect throw to the plate. Shuta Tonosaki homered in the fourth for Seibu, whose starter, Kona Takahashi, suffered his 12th straight losing decision. Leandro Cedeno, who joined Seibu over the winter from Orix, went 2-for-4 with a two-run eighth-inning double.
The Fighters’ Drew VerHagen allowed two runs over five innings to earn the win.
Giants 3, Swallows 0: At Tokyo Ugly Dome, Tatsuya Ishikawa, who chose to be released rather than re-sign with DeNA on a non-roster developmental contract last winter, singled in the game’s first run with a second-inning single, his first career hit, and threw five innings for his first career win, as Yomiuri shut out Yakult for the second straight day with Raidel Martinez earning his first save as a Giant.
Yakult started the season with three of its regulars out hurt, third baseman Munetaka Murakami, second baseman Tetsuto Yamada and center fielder Yasutaka Shiomi.
New Giant Trey Cabbage, who had two homers and two doubles over his first two games, slowed down a little, the Swallows holding him to a double and hitting him with a pitch for the second time in the series but keeping him from touching the plate or driving in a run.
Marines 7, Hawks 4: At Fukuoka (Softbank Subsidiary Name) Dome, Naoyuki Uwasawa, who caught some flack after joining the procession of former Fighters to Fukuoka after a one-year stint in America, faced the minimum over three innings before Neftali Soto caused him more pain and suffering with a leadoff homer in the fifth.
In 2019, a Soto drive off Uwasawa’s knee cap during interleague altered the trajectory of the right-hander’s career, while this one just tilted the trajectory of the game after Tomoya Masaki contributed to a four-run SoftBank lead with a two-run second-inning homer and a third-inning sacrifice fly.
Uwasawa retired the next five before leaving with two out and two on, including Soto, in the seventh, when Gregory Polanco doubled in one run off Darwinzon Hernandez. Watching the game, I found it hard to fathom how I survived five months without hearing Lotte fans chant “El Coffee, El Coffee, El Coffee home run, El Coffee home run!”
Hiromi Oka, who went off against the Hawks the day before, followed with a two-run pinch-hit double, and we were tied. The Marines kept it up against SoftBank’s bullpen, scoring the go-ahead run in the eighth on a Katsuya Kakunaka leadoff pinch single and a pair of wild pitches, the second a bouncing ball that lodged between catcher Takashi Umino‘s chest and his protector.
BayStars 2, Dragons 1: At Yokohama Stadium, Kentaro Taira pitched out of a few tight spots over five scoreless innings, and Masyuki Kuwahara and catcher Shion Matsuo homered. Kuwahara went 3-for-4 and Matsuo’s homer was the first of his brief career. Both came off Humberto Mejia, who went seven innings and had a hit. Taisei Irie, DeNA’s first-round draft signing from 2020, brought an electric fastball in for the ninth when he worked around a two-out pinch-hit walk from former BayStars Seiya Hosokawa to earn his first career save.
Buffaloes 6, Eagles 1: At Osaka UFO Dome, Rakuten lefty Wataru Karashima, who had not pitched in the majors since Aug. 16, 2023 because of a left-shoulder injury, was knocked out in Orix’s three-run second inning, which started on back-to-back doubles from Kotaro Kurebayashi and Yuma Tongu. Ryo Ota capped the rally with the first of his two RBI singles, and Yutaro Sugimoto homered in the fifth for the Buffaloes.
The teams combined for 27 hits in the seventh game in the seventh game in Japanese pro baseball history in which both clubs had a hit in every inning, according to Chunichi Sports.
Carp 2, Tigers 0: At New Hiroshima Citizens Stadium, Hiroshima lefty Shohei Mori struck out five over seven-plus innings and Taylor Hearn saved the Carp’s bacon, in the eighth, retiring three straight with two on before Ryoji Kuribayashi earned the save in the team’s first win.
Shogo Akiyama and new import Elehuris Montero both left the game hurt for the Carp, Akiyama after hurting his right ankle in the fourth inning, when he drew a leadoff walk and scored the first run, his replacement, Shunsuke Tamura singled a run in the sixth. Montero hurt his oblique muscles swinging in the seventh.
