◆ Pacific League Nippon-Ham 0-8 Softbank Hawks (21st, ES CON FIELD)

Nippon-Ham suffered a crushing defeat against Softbank Hawks on the 21st (at Escon Stadium). They failed to win the series, bringing their season record against SoftBank to 1 win and 10 losses. pitcher Tomoya Saito (31), who was registered as a player that day, took the mound as the fifth reliever. He impressed with his comeback, throwing two perfect innings with a top speed of 157 km/h and strike out.

He swung his right arm with calm determination. Taking the mound in the eighth inning with his team trailing by eight runs, he relied on his 155キロ前後のtwo seam fastball fastball to drive in hitter. After about a month of preparation in the farm system, he said, “I was working on developing pitches that would induce swings and misses—both my fastball and breaking ball.” He recorded two swings and misses struck out with his splitter, demonstrating solid results.

The team is on a losing streak and is 6.5 games behind the league leaders. They are also 3 games behind second-place Softbank Hawks. "We are still in the growth stage from here. I want to keep improving myself." The returning hard-throwing pitcher will inject power into the relief pitchers who are showing signs of fatigue. (Yasushi Yamaguchi)