The Eagles and Hawks matched up with first place in the Pacific League on the line, Masahiro Tanaka took the mound for the Giants for the first time at Koshien Stadium, and we got a taste for why it can be a pain in the butt to manage the Hanshin Tigers.
Thursday’s games
Buffaloes 7, Lions 1: Although the Lions are in last place, this was the first time this year, they’ve been swept in a three-game series.
Orix tied a record for consecutive wins at Osaka Dome with eight that the Buffaloes set in 2021, when the franchise won its first Japan Series since 1996, the year Ichiro Suzuki won his third straight Pacific League MVP as the Orix BlueWave’s headliner.
A Tigers rookie made his starting debut at Koshien and was extremely sharp, the Fighters’ home run power made the difference–again–after Rakuten got a terrific scoreless start from José Ureña, while Kensuke Kondo decided a pitchers’ duel in Fukuoka.
Thursday’s games
Tigers 2, Swallows 0, 7 innings rain: Starting in the third game of his career, Hanshin’s 21-year-old rookie Hidetoshi Ibaraki pitched out of a couple of jams in his season debut to work six innings for his first career win. Hanshin’s Masato Morishita put a good swing on a decent curve from Yasunobu Okugawa curve for his fourth homer of the season to open the fourth inning. Teruaki Sato followed with a double and Yusuke Oyama completed a good at-bat with an RBI single. The defending Central League champs win their season’s first series at Koshien.
