Giants’ ace Sugano shuts out Tigers
Yomiuri Giants ace Tomoyuki Sugano overpowered the Hanshin Tigers on Tuesday in a three-hit 1-0 shutout win at Tokyo Dome while improving to 8-0 in nine starts.
The right-hander was precise with good movement as he struck out seven and walked one and generated a lot of soft contact.
Tigers lefty Haruto Takahashi was not quite as sharp, and one of his mistakes ended up well back in the left-field stands on Kazuma Okamoto’s 17th home run in the fourth inning. Takahashi allowed two hits but needed more help from his fielders than Sugano did. The side-armer struck out six and walked three.
“I had to make a lot of pitches at the start, but (catcher Takumi) Oshiro called a good game and got me through it,” Sugano said after his third complete game victory. “At the start we used mostly fastball and sliders, but from the fifth inning we mixed it up more.”
He became the first Giants pitcher since Hall of Famer Masaki Saito to win his first eight decisions of the season.
Dragons clobber Swallows’ Takahashi
The Chunichi Dragons knocked out Yakult Swallows lefty Keiji Takahashi (1-2), scoring four runs off him in two innings en route to an 8-3 13-hit win at Tokyo’s Jingu Stadium.
Dragons lefty Shinnosuke Ogasawara (1-1) allowed three runs on five hits and two walks. He struck out six.
Ino, BayStars hold off Carp
Shoichi Ino (4-3) scattered four hits and two walks over six scoreless innings for the DeNA BayStars en route to a 4-3 win over the Hiroshima Carp at Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium.
Ino, who struck out four, needed two of those to get out of his only jam of the game in the sixth inning, when Hisayoshi Chono opened with a leadoff double and Seiya Suzuki reached on a no-out error.
Carp starter Allen Kuri (2-3) allowed a run in the second on three one-out singles, but pitched out of trouble before surrendering three in the fifth after Ino opened with a leadoff single.
BayStars lefty Edwin Escobar allowed three of the four batters he faced in the seventh to reach, but after three runs scored, the BayStars pen locked the door with Kazuki Mishima recording his seventh save.
Mejia lifts Lions past Buffaloes
Ernesto Mejia broke open a 1-1 pitchers’ duel in the eighth inning off reliable setup man Tyler Higgins (1-2) in the Seibu Lions’ 3-1 win over the Orix Buffaloes at Osaka’s Kyocera Dome.
Higgins took the mound in the eighth after Buffaloes ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed an unearned run over seven innings.
Higgins caught a break to open the inning when right fielder Hayato Nishiura made a jumping catch against the right-field wall for the first out. Shuta Tonosaki, whose two doubles accounted for half of Seibu’s hits against Yamamoto, singled and Hotaka Yamakawa, A force put runners on the corners with two outs, but the trailing runner advanced to second.
Mejia then lined a pitch to deep left that plated both runners.
Lions setup man Reed Garrett, whose two runs allowed on Saturday, contributed to Seibu blowing a three-run lead, worked around two singles. He did it thanks to a big play by third baseman Corey Spangenberg for the second out and by striking out Takahiro Okada to end the inning. Tatsushi Masuda closed for his 10th save.
Seibu starter Kona Takahashi (2-5) allowed four hits and a walk. He hit one batter and struck out seven. Yamamoto struck out 12 and walked two in one of his more impressive performances this season. The Lions scored in the fifth on a Tomoya Mori double and an error on first baseman Aderlin Rodriguez.
Marines lord it over Hawks again
Hisanori Yasuda singled in a run in the first and two more in a three-run seventh as the Lotte Marines beat the SoftBank Hawks and their ace Kodai Senga (4-2) 6-4 at Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium.
Shogo Nakamura reached base three times and scored three times for the Marines. Lotte starter Manabu Mima (4-2) allowed four runs, two earned, over eight innings, and saved himself at least a run in the first inning with a pair of sharp fielding plays.
Senga surrendered six runs and was chased in the seventh inning.
The Marines, who had a winning record against the Hawks last season, improved to 3-1 against them this year.
Cuban outfielder Yurisbel Gracial made his season debut for the Hawks after arriving in Japan last month. He started in left field but failed to judge Yasuda’s pop fly in the first that fell for a single, and his high fly to the wall that he gave up on, allowing it to go for a double.
Nakata, Fighters crush Eagles
Sho Nakata’s two-run homer highlighted a four-run first inning, when the Nippon Ham Fighters batted around against Hayato Yuge (3-2) in a 9-4 win at Sapporo Dome.
The Eagles opened the scoring against Naoyuki Uwasawa (3-2) threw a leadoff bunt single, an error and a Daichi Suzuki single. But that was the only run the right-hander would allow over seven innings as he struck out 10 and walked one.
Yuge lasted 5-13 innings, but that was long enough to cough up nine runs, eight of them earned.
Active roster moves 8/18/2020
Central League
Activated
| Tigers | P | 29 | Haruto Takahashi |
| Tigers | IF | 00 | Hiroki Uemoto |
| Carp | P | 13 | Takuya Yasaki |
| Swallows | P | 47 | Keiji Takahashi |
Dectivated
None
Pacific League
Activated
| Hawks | IF | 27 | Yurisbel Gracial |
| Fighters | OF | 3 | Wang Po-jung |
| Buffaloes | IF | 67 | Keita Nakagawa |
Dectivated
None
Starting pitchers for Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020
Pacific League
Fighters vs Eagles: Sapporo Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT
Naoyuki Uwasawa (2-2, 3.77) vs Hayato Yuge (3-1, 3.71)
Marines vs Hawks: Zozo Marine Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT
Manabu Mima (3-2, 5.28) vs Kodai Senga (4-1, 3.53)
Buffaloes vs Lions: Kyocera Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3-1, 3.86) vs Kona Takahashi (2-5, 6.47)
Central League
Giants vs Tigers: Tokyo Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT
Tomoyuki Sugano (7-0, 1.75) vs Haruto Takahashi (1-0, 0.00)
Swallows vs Dragons: Jingu Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT
Keiji Takahashi (1-1, 3.14) vs Shinnosuke Ogasawara (0-1, 4.50)
Carp vs BayStars: Mazda Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT
Allen Kuri (2-2, 4.05) vs Shoichi Ino (3-3, 2.60)
