With Tigers rookie Shoki Murakami’s start in Hiroshima wiped out by rain in Hiroshima Saturday’s big event became the mouthwatering matchup between a pair of pitchers aspiring to pitch in MLB, Orix’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Seibu’s Kona Takahashi.

The only downside to that matchup was having to either turn down the volume or bear the brunt of umpire Kazuyuki Shirai’s screeching strike calls. On the bright side, if one dislikes posing, Yuki Yanagita prevented Hirokazu Sawamura from scaring the children with his Randy Arozarena look in Chiba.

Saturday’s games

Dragons 2, Giants 1: At Nagoya Stadium, first-year Yomiuri import Foster Griffin allowed a run over seven innings to outlast Chunichi lefty Takahiro Matsuba, who allowed a run in six innings, but the Dragons scratched out a tie-breaking run in the eighth inning off Tomoya Mikami (0-1).

Rookie Hiroki Fukunaga, whose two-out sixth-inning single contributed to the Dragons tying it 1-1, singled in pinch-runner Wataru Takamatsu after Takaya Ishikawa reached on a one-out walk. Raidel Martinez worked a 1-2-3 ninth against the heart of the Giants’ order to record his ninth save.