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

Nippon-Ham pitcher Hiromi Ito pitched well but received no run support, resulting in his seventh loss of the season.

closer the opposing team hitless through six innings, but with no hit support and the score still 0-0 going into the eighth inning, he allowed a single to Yamamura, the leadoff batter, and pinch runner Takamatsu immediately stole second base. This led to bad throw by catcher Tamiya, putting a runner on third with no outs. He managed to get Canario to ground out to the shortstop, making it one out with a runner on third, but then he allowed a go-ahead RBI single to Takizawa, and was unfortunately taken out of the game at this point.

He pitched well in his last outing, giving up only one runs in seven innings, and he took a positive view of his pitch performance, saying, "I had a really good feeling pitching last time, and I had a good feeling about myself again today. It was a very positive experience, but I still want to win."

Despite a strong performance of 3 hit 1 runs (0 earned) allowed through 8 innings and 10 strike out, he suffered his 7th loss of the season. He has been winless since June 19th, and has now lost four straight games. In the 7 games he has pitched during that time, the team has lost every single one. "To be honest, we haven't been able to get a win on Tuesdays, so I feel that the team hasn't been able to build momentum," he said.

Regarding the difficulty of the first match against an ace-level opponent, he said, "That's fate, I guess, and I have to overcome it. I'll be facing similar matchups in the future, so I'll do my best to get into a good rhythm next time."

However, despite the disappointing loss, he spoke about his pitching duel against Seibu Lions 's Taira, saying, "We were already on friendly terms, but we started talking about a lot more things during the recent All-Star game, so it was a great experience pitching against him, and I really enjoyed it."