Tuesday was part of a dream come true in a country where the schedule often means a week of meaningless makeup games. Before he left us, the late great Wayne Graczyk, spoke of his dream of the season being decided on the regular-season’s final game.

Although the pennants were both decided in September, the Pacific League playoff picture came down to the final out in Sendai on Tuesday.

We also had some news about Rintaro Sasaki, who was expected to attract major attention in this month’s NPB draft, while yesterday I published some research on outgoing Giants manager Tatsunori Hara and how much of his results he owes to Yomiuri’s ability to secure talent from rival teams each year. It’s a surprising amount.

Tuesday’s game

Marines 5, Eagles 0: At Miyagi Stadium, the Marines played a winner-take-all game against Rakuten. Their win knocked the Eagles out of the playoff picture, and pushed the Marines into second place ahead of SoftBank.