On Wednesday, a former player exposing himself in public reminds us of the weird way in which Japan’s media “protects” the privacy of suspects arrested by the police here. On the field, Ryosuke Kikuchi had a milestone night, and then hit a walk-off homer, a rookie hit a grand slam and the Nippon Ham Fighters insured their victory with some suicidal behavior.

Wednesday’s games

Fighters 4, Marines 1: At Kitahiroshima Taxpayers Burden Field, Sachiya Yamasaki allowed a run in 7-1/3 innings, and the Nippon Ham Fighters came from behind with the help of back-to-back suicide squeezes on Wednesday.

Yamasaki (8-3) allowed a run on three hits and error in the first inning, but Franmil Reyes tied it in the bottom of the first with 11th home run. A leadoff walk and Chusei Mannami double then set up Nippon Ham’s big inning.

The Fighters took the lead on an error charged to Neftali Soto for failing to catch a wide throw at first base, and Nippon Ham wasted no time piling on. On consecutive pitches, Torai Fushimi and Tatsuki Mizuno laid down perfect squeeze bunts with the runners going from third.

Last year in June, the Fighters went through a suicide squeeze phase and over the course of three games had three runners tagged out at the plate on pitch outs, twice against the Marines on June 24.

“I regret giving up the first-inning homer and the two squeeze bunts, but from the third inning on I was able to pitch my kind of game,” Lotte starter C.C. Mercedes (4-6) said.

Marines skipper Masato Yoshii also liked what he saw at the finish from his lefty, but was not pleased by how Mercedes came out of the gate.

“This was an important game for us, so it might have been better for him to come out pitching as well as he possibly could, but we got behind and that was that,” Yoshii said. “We had no answer for manager (Tsuyoshi) Shinjo’s calling for suicide squeezes on consecutive pitches, and that completely took the air out of us.”