In Japan on Saturday, Teruaki Sato did in the Swallows again, a SoftBank rookie had a heck of a homecoming in Sendai, where Livan Moinelo once more came up empty after a solid performance and Yuki Yanagita won a Hiroshima-connection throw-down. Seiya Hosoka, who started the season 0-for-14, helped out a favorite veteran teammate with his third homer, and new Orix import Anderson Espinoza continued to deal.

On a future programming note, I was at Jingu Stadium today, where I talked with Munetaka Murakami, Domingo Santana and Sheldon Neuse, where despite the crappy situation for the media, I got a few interesting bits to share with you in the coming weeks.

Saturday’s games

Tigers 4, Swallows 3: At Jingu “Tokyo’s Sacrifice to Corporate Greed and Governmental Malfeasance” Stadium, the Tigers’ Teruaki Sato sank the Swallows for the second straight day with a tie-breaking home run.

The Swallows loaded the bases in the third against Kotaro Otake (1-1) with a one-out walk and two singles for Domingo Santa to single in Norichika Aoki and Hideki Nagaoka‘s sac fly to plate Jose Osuna. After facing the minimum over three innings, Kojiro Yoshimura (0-1) surrendered a leadoff homer to Koji Chikamoto in the fourth. Takumu Nakano then singled and scored the tying run on a Yusuke Oyama single, but Yoshimura followed with three straight outs to keep it tied.

The Tigers untied it in the seventh. Ukyo Maekawa singled and came home when Sato, whose 10th-inning homer proved decisive Friday, repeated the feat.

Takeshi Miyamoto drew a leadoff walk in the home half, went to third on an Aoki double and scored on a ground out, but that was it for the Swallowers.

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