◆Nippon Life Interleague Series 2026: Nippon-Ham 2-4 The Giants (29th, ES CON FIELD)

Nippon-Ham 's pitcher, Taiki Kikuchi performance against his former team, closer all three batters in the first inning.

He pitched in the seventh inning as the third pitcher. Yoshikawa and Maru grounded out infield, and finally scored a swing struck out from Darbek with a 150 km/h fastball.

The right-handed pitcher, who joined Nippon-Ham this season through the active player draft, reflected, "It felt really strange, because these are all people I played with until last year. It felt a little odd and I was putting too much power into it, but today I was able to throw a lot of my own pitches."

In his second start of the season, he pitch his first runs. His strong performance against The Giants was a way of repaying his former team, but he said, "It was only one game, so I want to keep this up. It was good to be able pitch well in front of my former team. I want to continue this and contribute to the team throughout the season."