Wednesday was Roki Eve, and hopefully will see more of Roki Sasaki in his rematch with Nippon Ham’s Takayuki Kato than we did when his last start was abbreviated by being hit on the ankle by a batted ball after facing five batters.

In Wednesday’s games, SoftBank struggled to score again in Sendai, spoiling a big night for a rookie, while Seibu scratched another win giving one of their players a belated birthday present. In Chiba, the Fighters were once again bunt-happy against the Marines. In the Central League, the battle for first place at Tokyo Dome continues to be lively, and Tyler Austin is mashing till the cows come home.

Wednesday’s games

Eagles 2, Hawks 1: At Miyagi Stadium, Rakuten spoiled a rookie’s coming-out party by coming from behind in the ninth inning. Yuki Matsumoto (2-2), going for his seventh straight save, surrendered a leadoff single to Hiroto Kobukata and a game-tying triple to Ryosuke Tatsumi, who then scored on Toshiki Abe‘s one-out sayonara single.

Soichiro Ishizuka, who spent 3-1/2 years on a non-roster developmental contract after the Hawks selected him in the 2019 developmental draft, had his first major league hit since being added to SoftBank’s 70-man roster in July.

Hawks center fielder Ukyo Shuto appears to have robbed Maikel Franco of a two-run fourth-inning home run by snaring it before it got over Miyagi Stadium’s low center-field wall. Ishizuka, who had been mashing on the farm team, then gave the Hawks the lead with his first major league homer in the visitors’ fifth.

Tomohisa Ozeki allowed three singles and no walks over six innings, and Darwinzon Hernandez and Koya Fujii got the game to Matsumoto. The Hawks ended their seventh with Kensuke Kondo getting thrown out at the plate trying to score from second on a single. But with the outfield playing in, he had little chance even with a great jump.

And while I’m no fan of shallow outfields until they’re absolutely necessary, they make sense with an extreme ground-ball hitter like Taisei Makihara at the plate, and not, as happened over the weekend, against extreme fly-ball hitter Gregory Polanco.

Giants 4, Carp 1: At Tokyo Ugly Dome, Kazuma Okamoto made good on his second chance to give the Giants the lead, blasting a three-run tie-breaking eighth-inning homer off Taylor Hearn (0-1).

The Carp broke the ice in a southpaw pitchers’ duel between Hiroshima’s Hiroki Tokoda and the Giants’ Foster Griffin when he pulled a high flat two-seamer into the right-field stands for his ninth homer and a 1-0 seventh-inning lead.

Coco Montes doubled with two outs in the sixth, but Tokoda retired Okamoto to end the inning. In the seventh, however, the lefty issued a leadoff walk to Hayato Sakamoto, and Shogo Asano doubled him home to tie it. Naoki Yoshikawa opened the eighth with an eighth-inning infield single, and Montes’ second double put runners on second and third for Okamoto, who followed with his second homer in two games and his 20th of the season.

The Carp wasted a leadoff walk in the eighth against Alberto Baldonado (2-3) when catcher Yukinori Kishida foiled a stolen base attempt. Taisei Ota struck out the side in the ninth for his 20th save.

Lions 1, Buffaloes 0: At the domed stadium formerly known as “Prince,” Orix’s Ryuhei Sotani (5-9) struck out 10 over seven innings while allowing a run on seven hits and two walks as the Buffaloes lost 1-0 to the Lions for the second straight night. Chihiro Sumida (8-8) went six innings and left after Junichiro Kishi broke the ice with a sixth-inning RBI single. Sumida, who turned 25 the day before, won consecutive starts for the first time since June.

The Lions might have won by a larger margin but had two runners thrown out on the bases in the eighth inning before Albert Abreu worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his 20th save.

BayStars 7, Dragons 1: At Yokohama Stadium, Katsuki Azuma (10-2) allowed a run while striking out seven over six innings, and DeNA belted out 13 hits to beat Chunichi for the second straight night.

Keita Sano hit a two-run first-inning homer off Yuta Matsukihira (1-2), and Tyler Austin doubled and scored on a Shugo Maki single before the Dragons got out of the inning with the bases loaded.

Austin drew a third-inning leadoff walk. Two singles followed before a bases-loaded walk and an RBI single from former Dragon Yota Kyoda in a three-run rally. Austin hit his 21st homer in the sixth.

Tigers 10, Swallows 4: At Osaka UFO Dome, Hanshin scored three first-inning runs despite leadoff man Koji Chikamoto‘s failure to extend his streak of leading off the first with a hit beyond six games. Doubles by Takumu Nakano and Teruaki Sato opened the scoring against Cy Sneed (2-6), and Yusuke Oyama followed with his 12th home run.

Doubles by Seiya Kinami and Yuki Nishi ignited a three-run second. Chikamoto singled ahead of RBI singles by Nakano and Shota Morishita.

Nakano became the fourth Tigers player with 100 hits in each of his first four pro seasons. Yuki Nishi (6-4) allowed three runs over six innings to earn the win, while Teruaki Sato hit his 10th home run for the Tigers.

Fighters 7, Marines 1: At Chiba Marine Stadium, Nippon Ham came from a run down in third on a Torai Fushimi leadoff double and errors on back-to-back bunts. Franmil Reyes made it 4-1 in the fourth with a two-run homer, his 13th, off C.C. Mercedes (4-7). Sachiya Yamasaki (9-3) allowed a run over eight innings to pick up the win.

A week ago, the Fighters also went to town against Lotte on back-to-back suicide squeezes, so there seems to be a pattern here.

Reyes, who had been sent down to the minors, said after his fifth home run of the month, “I’ve had some really hard times this year, but I’ve largely found my way.”