◆ Pacific League Softbank Hawks 6-0 Seibu Lions (30th, Tokyo Dome)

In the fourth inning with one out and the bases loaded, Softbank Hawks 's Ryuji Umino doble a two-run double that hit the left field wall, giving them the lead. This was his seventh at-bat with bases loaded this season, and he finally got results. In the previous series against Lotte, the first two games were canceled due to rain, and the manager had been giving him a pep talk in the indoor practice facility. "I told him I would keep telling him until he could get a hit," he said, and the pressure he put on the starting catcher, whose hitting has been a weakness, paid off in the first game of the three-game series for first place. "Today it was Umino. He was celebrating like that, he was doing it to me. He hit it. When I saw (Taira's) start today, I thought we weren't going to score any runs," he recalled.