Chiba Lotte Marines 2, Nippon-Ham Fighters 0
The Chiba Lotte Marines shut out the Nippon-Ham Fighters on Saturday, winning by a score of 2-0. Chiba Lotte’s pitching was stellar as it was fronted by their starter Roki Sasaki, who pitched 8.0 innings while striking out nine Nippon-Ham batters. He also gave up only two walks throughout his start.
The Marines’ two runs came off solo home runs from both Gregory Polanco and Shogo Nakamura. As a team, Chiba Lotte recorded eight hits.
The Fighters had just three players record hits during the game. Chusei Mannami and Franmil Reyes were the two big-time performers as they both had two hits during the game.
Takayuki Kato got the start for Nippon-Ham and went 6.1 innings. Ultimately, it was he who gave up the home runs to Polanco and Sasaki that led to the loss. Kato gave up all eight hits that Chiba Lotte had.
The Fighters’ bullpen was solid all day after Kato exited as they gave up no hits and just two walks combined. Unfortunately, Nippon-Ham just did not find any offense to give themselves even a chance to win.
Yokohama DeNA BayStars 3, Hanshin Tigers 1
The Yokohama DeNA BayStars defeated the Hanshin Tigers by a score of 3-1 on Saturday. The BayStars were able to reach 10 hits as a team and their great day of pitching was enough to knock off Hanshin.
Headlining Yokohama’s offense was Shugo Maki and Keita Sano who combined for six hits. Both players also scored all three runs for the BayStars as well. Their hitting was good enough to put them in a position to have their teammates be able to bring them home.
The two hitters for Yokohama that were responsible for the RBI were Tyler Austin (2) and Keito Mori.
Katsuki Azuma got the start for the BayStars and went 4.0 innings. Despite giving up three hits, he kept runs off of the board and struck out three batters as well. Hanshin was unable to get a run across until the 9th inning. Yasuaki Yamasaki, Chihaya Sasaki, and Yuya Sakamoto combined for 3.0 innings and gave up no runs and no hits. Sakamoto had two strikeouts as well.
The Tigers’ one run came against Yokohama reliever Kohei Morihara. Seiya Kinami knocked in the RBI. However, the hope that Hanshin had was cut short as Morihara was able to close it out.
Now, Nippon-Ham and Hanshin will have to climb back in these best-of-three series with both Chiba Lotte and Yokohama DeNA needing one more win to move on to the final stage.
WBN NPB: https://worldbaseball.com/league/japan/
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This picture taken on April 17, 2022 shows Lotte Marines pitcher Roki Sasaki smiling during the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) match between the Chiba Lotte Marines and Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters at ZOZO Marine Stadium in Chiba. – The 20-year-old Sasaki, who threw a perfect game with 19 strikeouts on April 10, pitched eight more perfect innings on April 17 before being taken out of a scoreless game against Nippon Ham to record a total of 17 straight perfect innings. – Japan OUT (Photo by JIJI PRESS / AFP) / Japan OUT (Photo by STR/JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images)
