On Saturday, Yoshinobu Yamamoto outdueled Kohei Arihara as the Orix Buffaloes defeated the SoftBank Hawks 3-2 in the Pacific League.
Yamamoto (9-3) struck out nine batters over eight innings in front of 40,062 at Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome, allowing one run on six hits and no walks.
Arihara (3-2), who joined SoftBank this season after two years in the United States, took the tough defeat, the Hawks’ seventh in a row, allowing two runs on seven hits and a hit batsman over seven innings.
Yamamoto entered the game with a 1-0 advantage in the first inning after Kotaro Kurebayashi singled with two outs and scored on Yuma Tongu’s RBI single. Tongu’s 11th home run put the game up 2-0 in the sixth.
“Even when I gave up a run, I was able to keep my focus while pitching,” Yamamoto remarked. “I lost to them the last time we played, and they’re in the pennant race, so I was fired up today.”
SoftBank’s Masaki Mimori hit his second home run in the seventh inning, while Orix’s Tomoya Noguchi doubled in what proved to be a crucial ninth-inning insurance run.
SoftBank’s Mimori singled in a ninth-inning run, but the Hawks’ luck ran out as they tattooed the ball but couldn’t tie the game.
Yuma Mune, Orix’s two-time Golden Gloves winner at third base, converted a sizzling smash into a double play for the first two outs, and Yuki Udagawa, Orix’s third pitcher, only got his first save when Tongu gloved a bullet of a line drive at first base for the last out with two runners on.