On Thursday in Japan, the results of NPB players’ all-star voting were released, which predictably added a bunch of players to the PL team, five in total, which is not a record, and which I write about at some length below.

On the field, the Carp and Tigers played another doozy and we had a pair of shutouts, one pitcher’s first career complete-game shutout in a game when Yakult was traumatized by the second base bag. One rookie went eight in a duel between two starters with 5-0 records, and Hirokazu Sawamura even got a save, so it was a fun night even with just four games.

Thursday’s games:

BayStars 3, Swallows 0: At Yokohama Stadium, DeNA’s Kentaro Taira (2-0) threw his first career shutout, a seven-hitter in which four of the seven Swallows batters to reach were put out on the bases, one on a double play, two trying to stretch singles into doubles and the other caught stealing.

While second base proved an offensive stumbling block for Yakult, DeNA rode Toshiro Miyazaki‘s second-inning leadoff double to the game’s first run off Yakult’s Miguel Yajure (4-7). Two more doubles, from Keita Sano and Shugo Maki, made it 2-0 DeNA in the sixth. Sano singled in an eighth-inning insurance run, and Yakult finally succeeded in getting a runner in scoring position in the ninth moments before Taira ended it with his fifth strikeout.