◆ Pacific League Orix Buffaloes 9-6 Rakuten Eagles (3rd, Tokyo Dome)

Rakuten Eagles suffered walk-off loss to Orix Buffaloes. This marks their fifth consecutive loss, bringing their deficit to a season-worst 21 games. Their chances of making the Climax Series on their own have been eliminated.

It was a chaotic start. In the first inning, they took an early lead with one run and still had runners on first and second with no outs. McCusker stopped his bat, but the first base umpire called it a swing. McCusker made a gesture that seemed to object to the call and was ejected for insulting the referee. Despite this, they still had a four-run lead in the first inning.

Starter Shoji gave up homers to Kuririn and Kurita, and in the sixth inning, he runs 4. However, in the seventh inning with a two-run lead, Marte gave up a game-tying two-run homer to So. The game was back on square one. Then, in the ninth inning with one out and runners on first and second in the 6-6 inning, Fujihira gave up a walk-off three-run homer to Kurita. Although he briefly took a five-run lead, he couldn't hold away. Manager Yoshii said, "(Fujihira) always gives it his all, so sometimes things like this happen," without criticism.

lose came after McCusker was ejected from the game, leaving them without him from the first inning. While the absence of their main slugger was a blow, manager Yoshii said, "Things like that (ejections) happen in games, and the substitute players are doing their best, so I don't have any complaints about that."