On Tuesday in Japan, the results of the All-Star fan voting were announced from which we learned that Fighters fans voted early and often as Nippon Ham had nine players named to the team, including outfielder Chusei Mannami, who received the most overall votes, and all three pitchers’ slots.

I won’t say a bunch of the Fighters players don’t deserve to go. They deserve to go because the rules say they are deserving. If NPB wanted good results, it would fix the system so that it got them. We seem to be in a minority-rule mode the world over, so why not in NPB?

On the field, Tigers and Carp played a heck of a game, while Hotaka Yamakawa‘s home run drought came to an end for the Pacific League-leading SoftBank Hawks.

Tuesday’s games:

Fighters 8, Marines 3: At Kitahiroshima Taxpayers Burden Field, Yuya Gunji and Daigo Kawakamibata celebrated Fighters fans voting them to the PL All-Star team with two-run homers in the fourth and fifth off C.C. Mercedes that overturned Lotte’s 1-0 lead from Akito Takabe‘s second-inning solo homer off Shoma Kanemura (2-4), who went six.  Lotte got two back in the sixth, starting with Neftali Soto‘s ninth home run. Gunji singled in a run the Fighters’ three-run seventh, and Kawakamibata singled in a run in the eighth as Nippon Ham snapped a three-game losing streak after being swept at home over the weekend by the Hawks.