◆ Pacific League Softbank Hawks 3-0 Rakuten Eagles (12th, Mizuho PayPay Dome)

Softbank Hawks pitcher Haru Matsumoto earned his sixth win of the season, tying his personal best, by pitching six scoreless runs.

Although Nakajima led off the first inning with a single to center field, the pitcher retired the next two batters closer and got out of the inning with no runs.In the second inning, he recorded two struck out and retired the side in order. Riding that momentum, he also retired the side in order in the fourth and fifth innings closer. Using his fastball—which reached a top speed of 149 km/h that day—as his weapon, he did not allow a single run.

He delivered a brilliant performance, striking out nine struck out and securing the three-run lead. "In the past, I would have felt anxious or become passive with runner on base. I realized that I wouldn't be able to show my strengths if I did that, so I focused on each pitch, and I think being able to decide which pitches to throw based on the characteristics of the opposing hitter and our previous encounters led to this good result," he said proudly.

In his last five starts, he had been pulled after five innings each time, but on this day he pitched six innings, throwing 92 pitches, showing he had plenty of energy left for the seventh inning and beyond. Manager Kokubo also praised him, saying, "It was probably his best performance of the year. He held onto the pitch support well, and his pitching power didn't drop at all in the sixth inning. I felt like he'd taken another step up the ladder."