The 25th game between Tohoku Rakuten and Saitama Seibu will be held at Rakuten Mobile Park Miyagi from 2:00 p.m. on October 4th.

[Match record] Tohoku Rakuten (4th place) vs. Saitama Seibu (5th place) 12 wins, 12 losses

[Announced starting pitchers]
Tohoku Rakuten: pitcher Haruto Sakai 15 games, 1 win, 5 losses, ERA 6.06 (minor team record)
Saitama Seibu: pitcher Mitsunari Takahashi: 23 games, 8 wins, 8 losses, ERA

Tohoku Rakuten pitcher Haruto Sakai will be making his professional debut. In his last appearance for the minor league team (September 24th against Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters), he gave up 8 hit 4 runs in 3.2 innings, but in his professional debut in October of last season, he closer one runs inning. Attention will be focused on his first pitch on the major league mound in about a year. On the batting lineup, Rui Rui Muneyama has already recorded 112 hit so far, despite being a rookie. This is the second-highest record for a Tohoku Rakuten rookie, behind only Eigoro Mogi (currently with Tokyo Yakult). How far can he extend his record with two games remaining?

The starting pitcher for Saitama Seibu is Mitsunari Takahashi. In their last matchup on September 19th, he pitched 102 pitches in 6 innings, allowing 4 hit, 3 Walk, 5 strike out 1 runs earning his third consecutive win against Tohoku Rakuten. ERA against the team is still 0.69, showing his strong record. Will he be able to secure a win in the final game of the season? On the batting side, Taiyo Sato recorded multiple hit for the first time in about two months in his last game, and also scored his first RBI as a professional. Futoshi Sato joined the team as the second pick in the development draft and earned a regular contract in July. He hopes to further demonstrate his batting skills from here.

Written by Yokazu Sonoda

・ Pacific League standings /individual results