◆Pacific League: Softbank Hawks 2-5 Seibu Lions (6th, Mizuho PayPay)

Second-place Seibu Lions saw their first-round draft pick, catcher Taiga Kojima, go on a rampage with 4 hit in 5 At Bat and 4 RBI, although he narrowly missed a cycle. This led to their first successful breakthrough against the opponent's starting pitcher, Kamichatani, who they had struggled with this season. They stopped their losing streak at three games, defended their second-place position, and brought the game gap with the first-place Softbank Hawks back to six.

In the first inning, the leadoff hitter Canario reached base with a hit to right-front. After Takizawa, batting second, successfully executed a sacrifice bunt to make it one out with a runner on second, the third batter Kojima caught Kamichatani's low inside slider and hit a timely doble down the right-field line to take an early lead.

In the second inning with a one-run lead and two outs with runners on second and third, Kojima once again caught a fastball down the middle and hit a three-run home run, his ninth of the season, into the right-field stands to add more runs. Then, in the sixth inning, the lead-off batter, outfielder An-Ko Lin, hit a solo home run, his eighth of the season.

Starting pitcher Natsuki Takeuchi allowed 6 hit and 1 runs over 6 innings, earning his 11th win of the season, which is a personal best and ties him for the league lead.

Although he gave a Walk to the leadoff batter Masaki in the first inning, he got the next batter Shuto to hit into a second base grounder double play, finishing the start with three batters. In the second inning, consecutive hits from the leadoff batter put runners on first and third with no outs, but he did not allow any runs, getting Yanagimachi to hit into a second base grounder double play with one out and runners on first and third.

He continued to pitch tenaciously despite allowing runners on base. In the sixth inning, he gave up a run on Yamamoto's groundout to shortstop with runners on second and third and one out, but he managed to retire the subsequent batters.