On July 3rd, in the 12th round between Tohoku Rakuten Eagles and Hokkaido Nippon-Ham held at Rakuten Eagles Mobile Strongest Park, Tohoku Rakuten Eagles win 8-0.

Tohoku Rakuten Eagles 's starter Takahisa Hayakawa pitcher pitched 2 hit runs against the strong, Hokkaido Nippon-Ham lineup through 6 innings. In the top of the 7th, despite being in trouble with runners on first and third and one out due to Walk and errors by teammates, he retired two consecutive struck out of the next batter. In the top of the 8th, he retired all three batters in just 10 pitches, and retired the mound with 117 pitches, 2 hit, 12 strike out, 2 Walk, and no runs over 8 innings.

Meanwhile, the lineup took the lead in the bottom of the second with McCuscar's solo home run of his seventh. In the bottom of the sixth, with Daisuke Nakashima and Fumiya Kurokawa hitting in succession, McCuscar hit a timely hit and Hideto Asamura hit a sacrifice fly to add two more runs. The lineup's momentum didn't stop, and in the bottom of the eighth, Kurokawa, Ryosuke Tatsumi, and McCuscar hit three consecutive hits to score two runs. With two outs and bases loaded, Rui Muneyama players returning to the first team in this game made a timely doble for sweep, extending the lead to 8 runs.

In the top of the ninth, Ren Kajiya pitcher took the mound again. With two outs, he gave up a Walk, but ultimately closer Kotaro Kiyomiya on a grounder to pitcher, ending the game 8-0. The win Tohoku Rakuten Eagles saw pitcher Hayakawa earn his first win in about two months, and the lineup connected with 12 hit 8 runs. Among them, McCuscar had a standout performance, 4 hit 3 RBI.

The losing Hokkaido Nippon-Ham was Hiromi Ito pitcher, who threw 80 pitches during the 8th inning, 11 hit no walks Hit by Pitch 6 strike out 6 runs. This was a stark contrast to the previous game, where he threw a total of 15 hit, and the batting lineup was closer to 2 hit. Notably, Yuya Gunji player who returned to the first team today marked hit in his first at-bat.

123456789 total
Day 000000000 0
Raku 01000205X 8

Day ● Hiromi Ito-Kyosuke Kuroyanagi
Raku ○ Takahisa Hayakawa-Ren Kajiya

Text by Rian Ueno