Japan’s monthly MVPS for May were announced Thursday, when a last-place club walked-off a league leader, and two 10th-inning homers created an extra-inning butt kicking.

2nd-chancers Otake, Hosokawa honored

Hanshin lefty Kotaro Otake and Chunichi outfielder Seiya Hosokawa won the Central League’s monthly MVP awards Thursday. Both players changed teams in December thanks to the introduction of NPB’s active player draft. Otake had some success with the SoftBank Hawks a few years ago, but entered play Thursday 6-0 this season with a 0.71 ERA. Hosokawa, long a slugging on-base machine for the DeNA BayStars’ Eastern League farm club, has become the Dragons’ most productive hitter.

Otake was 3-0 with a 0.33 ERA in May, and follows rookie Shoki Murata as the team’s second straight pitcher of the month. The 24-year-old Hosokawa led the CL with a .360 average and also led in hits and total bases. He hit five home runs, three at cavernous Nagoya Dome.

For the first time since 2012, the Nippon Ham Fighters swept the PL monthly honors, with Takayuki Kato turning in virtually identical numbers to Otake, 3-0 with a 0.30 ERA, and Chusei Mannami blasting five homers, tying him for the PL lead in May. He entered Thursday’s games leading the PL with 11.

All four players were first-time winners.

Thursday’s games

Dragons 8, Lions 2: At Seibu Dome, Hosokawa celebrated his hitter of the month award by driving in three runs and scoring two against Seibu. His two-run first-inning double opened the scoring and he led off the seventh with his sixth home run of the season. Yuya Yanagi (2-4) allowed two runs over the distance to earn the win for the Dragons.