Wednesday brought a Jingu slugfest that wasn’t another game of Munetaka Murakami slugging solitaire for a change, although Domingo Santana did his level best. Roki Sasaki returned to duty, while Tomoya Mori and Kotaro Kiyomiya both had big nights while we learned that a SoftBank rookie went under the knife.

Ozeki has surgery

In the bad news department, rookie Hawks lefty Tomohisa Ozeki had surgery on Tuesday after an examination a week earlier raised the suspicion that he might have testicular cancer. The team said he is expected to be hospitalized for a week.

In January 2019, Tigers catcher Fumihito Haraguchi had underwent colon cancer surgery and returned to the majors that June.

Wednesday’s games

Eagles 5, Marines 4: At Miyagi Stadium, Lotte gave Roki Sasaki (6-2) a two-run first-inning lead against soft-tossing southpaw Wataru Karashima, but Sasaki couldn’t locate either his forkball, something that’s been a problem for a while now, or his slider, a pitch that has become increasingly effective.