Kohei Arihara returned to the mound in Fukuoka on Tuesday when Japan’s two leagues split their six interleague games, and after a rough start, last year’s league champs moved to the top two spots in the interleague standings.
Tuesday’s games
Dragons 2, Lions 1: At the stadium where Babe Ruth once played in lovely Omiya Park, Seibu submariner Kaito Yoza (0-2) threw one of his better games as a pro, striking out six while allowing two runs over seven innings. He couldn’t, however, pitch out of trouble in the fifth, surrendering a pair of two-out hits as Yuki Okabayashi singled in the game’s first run and scored on a Seiya Hosokawa double. Raidel Martinez recorded his CL-leading 14th save for the Dragons.
Sunday brought us another round of what sounds like a baseball version of dueling banjos between rookie pitchers Shoki Murakami of the Tigers and Orix’s Shumpeita Yamashita.
Sunday’s games
Buffaloes 4, Lions 1: At Osaka Dome, Yamashita (2-0) whose previous start came on April 11, the day before Murakami’s seven perfect innings at Tokyo Dome, this time followed a Murakami gem with one of his own.
Shumpeita Yamashita.
Orix’s top draft signing from 2020 struck out eight over seven scoreless innings, and has now allowed one run in 17-1/3 innings this season. Compared to Murakami, Yamashita’s been fairly pedestrian, allowing nine hits and six walks this season while striking out 25. Murakami has not yet walked a hitter and retired 37 consecutive batters at one stretch.
