Brandon Laird | jballallen.com

Interleague Day 10

The CL and PL split their games for the second straight day. The Yakult Swallows’ beatdown of the Seibu Lions behind 41-year-old Masanori Ishikawa allowed the CL to nearly pull even in runs scored with the PL, opening the possibility that the CL might lead in runs scored for the first time since interleague arrived in 2005. The CL now leads this year’s series 27-23-7.

Marines lose pitcher Ishikawa for season

Lotte Marines right-hander Ayumu Ishikawa, who ended last season looking at a move to the major leagues through the posting system, had season-ending elbow-cleaning surgery on June 3.

Buffaloes 2, Dragons 1

At Nagoya‘s Vantelin Dome, Orix ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto (5-5) was only a little better than Sawamura Award winner Yudai Ono (2-4), thanks to some solid work from his infielders, but he was much more efficient, allowing one run over seven innings.

The Buffaloes made Ono throw 35 pitches to get out of the first inning and another 24 in the second before he found his rhythm. The first five Orix hitters reached, but only two scored, on a Yutaro Sugimoto single.

Tyler Higgins worked a scoreless eighth and former Diamondback reliever Yoshihisa Hirano pitched the ninth for his third save.

Giants 6, Fighters 0

At Tokyo Dome, Yomiuri’s C.C. Mercedes (1-0) allowed two hits and no walks over 5-2/3 innings in his season debut, while striking out five.

Zelous Wheeler sparked a two-run first inning with a one-out double off former Rakuten teammate Takahide Ikeda (2-5, 2.85). He scored on a Naoki Yoshikawa single and Justin Smoak capped the rally with a double.

Shinnosuke Shigenobu capped a three-run Giants seventh with a two-run home run and Smoak added an insurance run in the eighth with his seventh.

Giants-Fighters highlights.

Swallows 10, Lions 1, 5 innings, rain

At Tokyo’s Jingu Stadium, Yakult battered Seibu’s best pitcher, Kona Takahashi (5-1) for 10 runs, nine earned on four walks and 11 hits, including home runs by Tetsuto Yamada, his 12th, Norichika Aoki, his second, and Munetaka Murakami, his 16th. Cory Spangenberg got the Lions on the board against Masanori Ishikawa (1-1) in the third with his third home run. Ishikawa sacrificed in each of his first three trips to the plate, something that doesn’t happen a lot.

Ishikawa’s set a franchise record by posting at least one win in 20 consecutive seasons, and for being the team’s oldest winning pitcher at 41 years, 4 months.

Marines 11, BayStars 7

At Yokohama Stadium, Leonys Martin hit his Japan-leading 17th home run, and Brandon Laird his 13th in a three-run third inning. Martin, doubled in the first and then singled in with a man on in the Marines’ two-run fifth, when Laird doubled in Lotte’s go-ahead run.

Toshiya Sato doubled and homered twice for Lotte, scoring three runs and driving in three.

Tigers 6, Hawks 1

At Koshien Stadium, Hanshin side-armer Koyo Aoyagi (4-2) man-handled the SoftBank Hawks, allowing one run over eight innings, while Koji Chikamoto and Yusuke Oyama each drove in two runs. The Hawks loaded the bases in the second while trailing 2-0, but Hanshin got out of the inning against SoftBank starter Shuta Ishikawa (3-4), who surrendered five runs over six innings.

Eagles 12, Carp 5

At Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium, Rakuten’s Hideaki Wakui (6-3) had another tough slog of it, allowing five runs over six innings, but had seven runs to work with. Fumiya Kurokawa capped a four-run first off Yuta Nakamura (0-3), whose ERA rose to 11.08 over three games after allowing five runs in four innings.

Kevin Cron went 2-for-4 for Hiroshima with his fifth home run.

Starting pitchers

Interleague

Giants vs Fighters: Tokyo Dome 5:45 pm, 4:45 am EDT

Shosei Togo (5-2, 3.91) vs Kazuaki Tateno (-)

Swallows vs Lions: Jingu Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Yasuhiro Ogawa (5-1, 3.52) vs Tatsuya Imai (3-2, 2.34)

BayStars vs Marines: Yokohama Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Haruhiro Hamaguchi (2-4, 2.95) vs Manabu Mima (3-2, 3.45)

Dragons vs Buffaloes: Vantelin Dome (Nagoya) 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Kodai Umetsu (0-1, 1.93) vs Daiki Tajima (2-3, 4.38)

Tigers vs Hawks: Koshien Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Masashi Ito (3-2, 2.43) vs Nick Martinez (4-1, 1.97)

Carp vs Eagles: Mazda Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Masato Morishita (3-3, 1.84) vs Masahiro Tanaka (2-3, 2.54)

Active roster moves 6/4/2021

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 6/14

Central League

Activated

Giants	P	42	Cristopher Crisostomo Mercedes
Tigers	P	19	Shintaro Fujinami
BayStars	P	48	Masaya Kyoyama
Carp	P	67	Yuta Nakamura
Swallows	P	19	Masanori Ishikawa

Dectivated

Giants	C	38	Yukinori Kishida
Tigers	P	13	Suguru Iwazaki
BayStars	P	49	Kevin Shackelford
Carp	P	28	Hiroki Tokoda

Pacific League

Activated

Hawks	IF	68	Masaki Mimori
Marines	P	76	Jose Flores
Fighters	IF	6	Sho Nakata
Fighters	IF	24	Yuki Nomura
Buffaloes	IF	36	Tatsuya Yamaashi

Dectivated

Hawks	IF	36	Taisei Makihara
Marines	P	42	Frank Herrmann
Fighters	IF	53	Ronny Rodriguez
Buffaloes	IF	53	Sho Gibo

Interleague Day 4 — Sato makes it rain

The Pacific League teams returned home after going 5-9-2 during the week at the Central League parks, and though the PL won the three blowouts, the CL escaped with three wins on Friday, thanks to the heroics of rookie Teruaki Sato.

In Japan, a teru teru bozu, is a kind of talisman, made of cloth or paper in the shape of a Halloween ghost figure that kids hang from windows in hopes of bringing good weather.

In this case, Tigers fans must have been crossing an awful lot of fingers, because the rookie rained home runs, pulled into a tie for the CL home run lead with 13 and became the first CL rookie to hit three in a game since Hall of Famer Shigeo Nagashima in 1958.

Fighters 10, Dragons 1

At Sapporo Dome, the big matchup appeared to be Nippon Ham rookie Hiromi Ito (2-4, 3.67) against Chunichi’s Sawamura Award-winning lefty Yudai Ono (2-3), but that pitchers’ duel turned one-sided in a hurry as the Fighters outhit the Dragons 16-5.

Ono struck out two walked one and allowed 11 hits over four innings as he surrendered six runs. Only two Fighters starters didn’t score, and those two, Kensuke Kondo and Ryo Watanabe, combined to drive in seven runs.

Dayan Viciedo had three hits, including a double, that set up Chunichi’s only run.

BayStars 7, Eagles 6

At Sendai’s Rakuten Seimei Park, Yamato Maeda chased Hideaki Wakui (5-3), who allowed two two-out sixth-inning singles before Maeda’s second home run made it a 5-4 game.

DeNA rookie Shugo Maki scored twice, and his eighth-inning solo homer, his ninth, turned out big after closer Kazuki Mishima surrendered a run in the ninth and ended the game with the go-ahead run on base to record his seventh save.

Lions 10, Tigers 7

At MetLife Dome, Sato crashed this party with his three homer night to send the Tigers to their third interleague win, Jerry Sands also homered for Hanshin, while Jefry Marte and Yusuke Oyama each had one-out RBI singles in the ninth that made it a 7-7 game against Reed Garrett (0-2), who served up Sato’s third.

Robert Suarez struck out the side in the ninth for his Japan-best 15th save.

Wu Nien-ting had three hits. His RBI double tied it 2-2 it 4-4 in the sixth. After the Tigers moved ahead in the seventh on an Oyama RBI single, Takeya Nakamura two-run homer was the big blow in Seibu’s three-run seventh.

Carp 10, Marines 8

At Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium, it was open season on pitchers as Lotte scored four runs with the help of five walks off Takuya Yasaki, and Hiroshima did the same against rookie Shota Suzuki (1-3), who allowed nine hits in his four innings.

Alejandro Mejia had four hits and scored twice for the Carp, who got four RBIs from Ryuhei Matsuyma. Brandon Laird led Lotte’s offense with a two-run first-inning homer and an RBI on a flyout to second, with Leonys Martin walking and scoring both times.

Carp rookie Ryoji Kuribayashi worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his 10th save and remained unscored upon in 19 games.

Buffaloes 9, Swallows 2

At Osaka’s Kyocera Dome, Masataka Yoshida hit his 11th homer, a two-run shot in the first off Rick van den Hurk (0-1), while Orix ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto (4-5) had the kind of game we associate with him, two runs on three walks, five hits and nine strikeouts over seven innings. Kotaro Kurebayashi and Stefen Romero also homered for the Buffaloes.

Hawks 9, Giants 3

At Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome, Wladimir Balentien hit two of the SoftBank Hawks’ four home runs as the defending Pacific League champs crushed the Central League’s Yomiuri Giants 9-3 in interleague play on Friday.

Balentien’s first home run of the season, a solo shot off Seishu Hatake (2-3) broke a 2-2 tie in the second. His two-run shot in the fourth capped four-run rally and iced the game at Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome.

“From the first home run, I felt, I was able to get good swings and hit them both on the button,” Balentien said.

The Giants opened the scoring on a two-run error in the first before Ryoya Kurihara tied it in the home half of the inning with a two-run homer, his fifth. Yuki Yanagita’s 11th home run, a third-inning, two-run shot made it 5-2.

SoftBank right-hander Shuta Ishikawa (3-3) gave up three runs over six innings. He walked four, hit one and allowed five hits while striking out eight.

The Hawks and Giants have played the last two Japan Series, with the Hawks winning all eight games. The win was SoftBank’s 10th straight against Yomiuri, having won their final interleague game in 2019 and with no interleague last season.