On 15 March, the opening match between Hiroshima and Chiba Lotte in Mazda Stadium ended in a 4-1 win for Chiba Lotte.

Chiba Lotte took the lead in the first inning when Hiromi Oka led off the inning with a doble single, and with two outs and one out, Misho Nishikawa hit an RBI single from second base. In the top of the second inning, Tatsuhiro Tamura 's Walk and Atsuki Tomosugi 's hit put runners on second and third with one out, and Soto's two-run RBI single with two outs and Shingo Ishikawa 's RBI doble added three more runs.

Starter Atsuki Taneichi pitcher retired three batters in the first inning and then walked inning runner in the second inning and did not allow a run. He walked mound in 4 innings on 62 pitches hit 1 Walk 3 strike out 3 runs. In the bottom of the fifth, Naoya Masuda pitcher retired three batters, and in the bottom of the sixth, Guerrero pitcher tied the game with one hit no runs.

​Rikuto Yokoyama pitcher, who entered the game in the bottom of the seventh, gave up a leadoff Walk and Shoichi Futamata's RBI doble to make it runs. He was still on second base with no outs, but he got through the inning with a minimum of runs. After the eighth inning, Shuta Takano pitcher closer inning 2 without runs to end the game 4-1. He scored four runs in six hit and win.

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○ Atsuki Taneichi-Naoya Masuda-Guerrero-Rikuto Yokoyama-Shuta Takano
Hiroshi Sato Ryunosuke - Takahashi Koya - Iwae Atsuya - Moriura Daisuke - Hearn