Japan Series Game 6 was held on Saturday, and was poised to be the series’ second 1-0 shutout, until more ninth-inning weirdness occurred. The Orix Buffaloes are now within one win of their franchise’s first series championship since Ichiro Suzuki and the BlueWave beat the Yomiuri Giants in 1996, and the first win in four tries over Yakult after losses in 1978, 1995 and last year.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto did not pitch after suffering an oblique injury in Game 1, but that didn’t seem to matter, and won’t pitch in Game 7, when it will be up to Orix’s Hiroya Miyagi and Yakult’s Cy Sneed to see if we have an Orix championship or a Game 8 trick or treat. 

Game 6

Buffaloes 3, Swallows 0: At Jingu Stadium, Sachiya Yamasaki continued his scoreless run in this year’s series, adding five solid innings to the four more fraught frames in last Sunday’s Game 2. This time instead of a three-run Swallows’ ninth-inning comeback and a tie game, the Buffaloes bullpen squashed the Swallows, holding them to two walks over four innings in the one-hit shutout.