The weekend’s interleague series at Pacific League parks wrapped up on Sunday with a clean PL sweep, the first time that’s happened in four years, when the Central League won all six games for the third time. The PL’s sweep was its fifth but its first in seven years.
The six wins, three in close games, three in blowouts, lifted the PL to 19-17 this year while outscoring the CL 147-118.
The day’s highlight was probably Takumi Kuriyama’s first pinch-hit sayonara home run in five years or perhaps it was the Fighters’ Kenshi Sugiya’s attempt to have a salmon body pillow answer “hero interview” questions while wearing one of those Fighters’ fish head hats. Maybe next time he’ll try the “kitsune dance” instead.
Sunday’s games
Lions 3, BayStars 2: At Seibu Dome, there were four home runs hit and the only run not scoring on the long ball was on a third-inning sac fly by Hotaka Yamakawa. Junichiro Kishi’s second homer made it 2-0 in the fourth, before Shugo Maki hit his 13th in the fifth and Keita Sano tied it with his fifth homer, in the sixth, off Dietrich Enns.
Tatsushi Masuda (1-0), Seibu’s fourth pitcher retired Maki and Neftali Soto to open a 1-2-3 ninth, and Kuriyama hit an 0-2 pitch from veteran reliever Shingo Hirata (0-1) out for his first homer of the year.
Eagles 3, Swallows 1: At Miyagi Stadium, Hideto Asamura singled in all three Eagles runs, one in the first off lefty Masanori Ishikawa (2-3) after Haruki Nishikawa reached on an error, and two in the seventh off reliever Hiroki Onishi, after Daichi Suzuki reached on an error and Nishikawa walked.
Takahiro Norimoto (3-2) struck out six over eight scoreless innings as he pitched out of a few jams, while Ishikawa left after five innings. Yuki Matsui secured his 13th save for the Eagles after surrendering a Yuki Yanagita-caliber opposite-field home run by Munetaka Murakami, his 15th, to the promenade behind the left-field stands in Sendai to open the ninth.
Marines 3, Tigers 2: At Chiba Marine Stadium, Enny Romero (3-4) worked six scoreless innings, Toshiya Sato scored a pair of runs, starting with Akito Takabe’s second-inning RBI single off Masashi Ito (1-2), and again on Brandon Laird’s two-run third inning double.
Teruaki Sato made mincemeat out of a Tayron Guerrero fastball in the eighth inning for a two-run homer, his 12th, but Guerrero struck out the next two batters and Naoya Masuda retired the Tigers in order in the ninth to earn his 10th save.
Fighters 7, Giants 2: At Sapporo Dome, 19-year-old Haruka Nemoto (1-0) beat 21-year-old Kai Yokogawa (0-1) in a matchup of rookie lefties with no career wins. Nemoto allowed two runs over five innings. Yokogawa gave up five runs in three-plus.
Go Matsumoto singled and scored in the first for the Fighters before Kazuma Okamoto tied it in the second with his 15th home run. Second-inning singles by Yuma Imagawa and Arismendy Alcántara set up the Fighters’ go-ahead run on a ground out by Kenshi Sugiya, who singled in another in the Fighters’ four-run fourth, earning him and his fish a spot on the hero interview podium.
Buffaloes 8, Dragons 0: At Osaka Dome, Orix shelled Yuya Yanagi (4-3), knocking him out after 2-1/3 innings, while Hiroya Miyagi (4-2) worked seven innings, allowing five hits and no walks.
Takahiro Okada went 2-for-3 in his season debut, homering and driving in three runs for the Buffaloes.
Hawks 8, Carp 0: At Fukuoka Dome, Tsuyoshi Wada hit 149 kph on the speed gun for the first time as a 41-year-old but left the game after 3-2/3 with discomfort in his left leg, having allowed two singles in the fourth and no walks.
Yurisbel Gracial singled in Masaki Mimori in the first off Drew Anderson (2-1), Taisei Makihara homered in the third with none on, his third, and Mimori capped a four-run fourth with a two-run home run, his sixth. Anderson was charged with six runs over four innings.
Active roster moves 5/29/2022
Deactivated players can be re-activated from 6/8
Central League
Activated
| Swallows | P | 19 | Masanori Ishikawa |
| Dragons | IF | 55 | Nobumasa Fukuda |
| BayStars | P | 48 | Masaya Kyoyama |
Dectivated
| Swallows | P | 26 | Koshiro Sakamoto |
| Giants | P | 99 | Matt Shoemaker |
| Dragons | P | 46 | Hiroshi Suzuki |
| Dragons | IF | 2 | Takaya Ishikawa |
| BayStars | P | 27 | Taiga Kamichatani |
Pacific League
Activated
| Buffaloes | P | 30 | Kohei Suzuki |
| Buffaloes | OF | 55 | Takahiro Okada |
| Eagles | P | 49 | Masaya Nishigaki |
| Eagles | IF | 22 | Keizo Kawashima |
| Fighters | P | 59 | Haruka Nemoto |
Dectivated
| Buffaloes | P | 69 | Jesse Biddle |
| Buffaloes | IF | 5 | Masahiro Nishino |
| Marines | P | 58 | Tokito Kawamura |
| Eagles | P | 30 | Shinri Komine |
| Eagles | OF | 50 | Atsuki Muto |
