◆ Pacific League Softbank Hawks 1-0 Nippon-Ham (April 4th, Kyocera Dome Osaka)

Nippon-Ham lost to league leaders Softbank Hawks, bringing their head-to-head record to 2 wins and 13 losses. This means they have a losing record against Softbank Hawks this season. The gap between them widened to 7.5 games, and their lead in the standings decreased to 12 games. They suffered the humiliation of losing all seven of their away games against Softbank Hawks.

Manager Shinjo lamented his team's offense, which allowed only five hit in seven innings against opposing starter Uwasawa, followed by a shutout game relay by Matsumoto in the eighth and Sugiyama in the ninth, saying, "We just couldn't hit." He continued, "Our players don't get discouraged even when we lose, so they're making a lot of noise in the dugout. They were paralyzed again. I'm sure they'll be free tomorrow," looking ahead.

Starting pitcher Ito pitched seven innings, allowing only one runs, and defense made mistakes, Ito covered for them, so we had to cover for those mistakes. We should have kept the score closer and built momentum from there, really."

One of the key moments in the game was the seventh inning, when they were trailing by one run. Leadoff hitter Kiyomiya Yuki got on base with a single to center field, and the speedy Yazawa was brought in as a pinch runner. The next batter, sixth batter Arizono, hit into a double play play at third base. The manager revealed that the strategy was based on the expectation that Arizono, who was in good form, would hit a bunting, saying, "There's no way we're going to bunt. He's been getting hits all this time, and he's been getting timely hits, so I'll leave it up to him. He should just go for it. If I wanted him to hit a ground ball to advance the runner, I would have given the sign for that."