◆Pacific League Rakuten Eagles 2-5 Nippon-Ham (5th, Rakuten Mobile Saikyo Park Miyagi)

Nippon-Ham pitcher Hiromi Ito (29) secured a comeback victory. Starting against the Rakuten Eagles (Rakuten Mobile), he held them to 1 runs over 7 innings as a closer, earning his 9th win. Having secured his first win in 10 games since the Softbank Hawks game on June 19th, he quietly savored the joy, saying, "I'm happy, yes."

A period of nearly three months without a win. 'It was something I hadn't experienced much before.' During that time, he suffered six losses. During this period of being removed from the active roster, he changed the position of his glove when set and his stride length when stepping onto the plate. These were days of repeated trial and error. 'I spent that time feeling frustrated, but I stayed focused. I was able to show what I've been working on for the past ten days in the game.' He poured all that pent-up frustration into his 90 pitches.

The ace delivered a magnificent pitch. Manager Tsuyoshi Shinjo (54) commented, "He was throwing good balls since the warm-up. I felt today would be different." That intuition proved correct, and he praised the performance where the pitcher reached a top speed of 153 km/h, saying, "His velocity was up. He thought for himself during those ten days and corrected his form." He was delighted that his reliable player had returned.

Even with a comeback win, Ito's expression did not soften. "To be honest, I wanted to keep them at zero, and I wanted to pitch until the very end." The team has won seven games in a row and is now tied with the second-place Seibu Lions. "I want to approach the remaining games with the mindset of continuing to grow," he said, tightening his resolve to reach even greater heights. (Hideto Sunada)