Nippon-Ham 's Yazawa pulled an outside breaking ball with all his might. In the bottom of the ninth inning with the score tied, one out and runners on first and second, he hit a single to right bad throw, and runner on second, Arizono, who had initially stopped at walk-off base, scored the winning run. Manager Tsuyoshi Shinjo (54) laughed and said, "I told Yazawa, 'Go and finish it, I'm counting on you,' and he did it in a strange way."

The rested slugger proved to be the winning move. It was a game played on the road from Fukuoka. Reyes and Mizuno, who were All-Stars and whose fatigue was a concern, were left out of the starting starting line-up. In the 8th inning, trailing by two runs, with two outs and the bases bases loaded, Reyes was brought in as a pinch doble and hit a game-tying two-run double down the left field line. "I'm glad I rested More (starting line-up) (laughs). If he was in the starting lineup, I wouldn't have been able to put him in a chance." He nodded at the pinch-hitting call in the best possible situation and said, "The atmosphere in the stadium was amazing, wasn't it?"

Even amidst a resounding victory, there were moments of dissatisfaction. After being Hit by Pitch by pitches three times by the third inning, he silently protested from the dugout by holding up three fingers. With a total of five Hit by Pitch-pitches, he said, "There were a bit too many hit-by-pitches. I'd like them to think about that." He spoke out precisely because he takes great care to minimize injury risks, including resting key players.

A late-game comeback propelled them back to second place for the first time in eight days. "I'm confident in the players I put out. If we were losing, people would ask, 'Why didn't you put them out?', but there's still more to come." In his fifth year as manager, he's using the depth of talent he's cultivated to get through the final stages of the season. (Yasushi Yamaguchi)