◇ Chiba Lotte Marines vs. Fukuoka Softbank 20th Round (27th, Zozo Marine Stadium)

Chiba Lotte Marines Koki Yamaguchi hit his 25th solo homer, marking two consecutive games.

Starter Kaito Mori pitcher gave up four runs but scored one run in the bottom of the second, making it 1-4 in the bottom of the third. With one out and no runner, Yamaguchi came to the plate and swung a fastball to the outside line. The ball soared high and curved in the center fielder direction and landed slightly to the right of the back screen. With a single home run in two consecutive games, he closed the gap to two runs.

The day before, with the game trailing by 5 runs, extra inning hit walk-off home runs in the bottom of the 10th inning. With this, August is now 8 Home Run in the season. Notably, the 25th Home Run season ties the record for most Japanese players since moving to Chiba, matching Kiyoshi Hatsushiba's record.

◇ Comment from Player Yamaguchi
"He hit a straight ball. It was perfect. It was perfect, but watching Shuto-san chase, I thought he might get a bit out, but I'm glad he got in. He was able to surpass Haruya-san (Inoue) in number of hits and catch up to Hatsushiba-san, so next I'll aim for Ochiai-san's number of hits."

Text by Minagi Niwa