Masahiro Tanaka made his first start as a Giant Thursday, when we had a Maddux and an entertaining pitchers’ duel in Osaka. Yesterday, I spoke too soon about how the winless had all won, forgetting the Seibu Lions, whose first two games in Sendai were washed out, and remain perfectly winless after their former ace shut them down.

Yesterday, I teased people on social media about a story regarding an opportunity 20 years ago NPB had to broadcast the Japan Series in America. After some e-mails with Bobby Valentine confirmed that my memory was not misinforming me, I wrote about 2,000 words about the lengths NPB goes to keep its games away from viewers and why: “NPB’s ban on fan video a telling sign.”

Thursday’s games

Giants 5, Dragons 3: At Nagoya Dome, Masahiro Tanaka pitched out of a couple of jams to allow a run over five innings and earn his first win in two years and the 188^th of his major league career, with 78 of those in MLB with the New York Yankees. He outpitched fellow Sawamura Award winner, Yudai Ono, who allowed four runs, two earned, in five innings.

Tanaka was spared a first-inning run when Elier Hernandez tracked down Seiya Suzuki‘s smoking liner in deep center with two on and no outs. Kazuma Okamoto, who had a hand in three of the Giants’ runs, set up Yomiuri’s first run with a second-inning leadoff single. Okamoto singled twice, doubled and had a sacrifice fly. Gakuto Wakabayashi and Trey Cabbage each had two hits for the Giants, and Hayato Sakamoto put a lean on the further taxed the Dragons with a pair of sac flies.