◆ Pacific League Nippon-Ham 0-1 Seibu Lions (11th, ES CON FIELD)

Nippon-Ham lost the first round of the battle for second place against Seibu Lions, dropping to third place. The gap between them and first-place Softbank Hawks widened to 8.5 games.

Starting pitcher Ito pitched well, holding the opposing team hit through six innings. However, in the eighth inning, he gave up a single to leadoff hitter Yamamura, and pinch runner Takamatsu was sent in. Takamatsu then stole second base during Canario's at-bat. Combined with bad throw by catcher Tamiya, the situation worsened to a runner on third with no outs.

Canario was retired on a ground ball to the shortstop, but with Takizawa coming up next, the batter missed the ball twice to try and secure squeeze, only to give up the game-winning RBI single to center field.

Manager Shinjo reflected, "Both Ito and Taira were excellent. It was a battle to see who could score the first run. When Takamatsu came in as a pinch runner, you really need to throw a quick pitch in under 1.23 seconds to get the out."

Regarding bad throw by Tamiya towards first base, which was off-target for Hosokawa who was covering second base when Takamatsu stole second, he calmly stated, "I wanted him to stay on the line. If he had, Hosokawa could have stopped it with his body."

Regarding Takizawa, count was wary of squeeze and gave hitter advantage, but "Seibu Lions often squeeze from the first pitch and 1-1, so I think there are squeeze in that area. At the end, fork didn't drop, right? He said, "It didn't really drop," he said.