◆Pre-season game Hanshin Tigers 4-1 Seibu Lions (11th, Koshien)

Seibu Lions 's starting pitcher, Kaito Yoza, left the game after four innings, giving up five hit four strike out and two runs.

In the first inning, he allowed consecutive hits from the leadoff batter, putting runners on first and third with no outs, and then, due to a breakdown in his team's defense, he gave up two runs. However, he recovered after that, striking out Devaney and Obata in the second inning, and Obata and struck out in the fourth inning, and reflected, "We had runner on base every inning and it was a tough game, but we managed to closer to two runs in the first inning. It was hard to get struck out last year, so I guess the result was good."

There are about two weeks left until the opening game. "I'll keep on working on making my fastball feel faster and improving the accuracy of each of breaking ball so that I can get a better feel for them in actual games," he said.