On 11 March, Tohoku Rakuten and Tokyo Yakult played at Shizuoka Kusanagi Baseball Stadium in the opening match, where Tohoku Rakuten lost 3-5.

Tohoku Rakuten started Masaru Fujii pitcher. In the first inning, a teammate's error with one out and the bases loaded, and then a timely doble with two outs and bases loaded on the plate suddenly gave them a four-run lead. After the second inning, he gradually regained a stable pitch and went down mound with a score of 6 hit 4 strike out 4 Hit by Pitch 4 runs (earned runs 0).

In the bottom of the fourth, with two outs and runners on second and third base, back-to-back RBI doble by Hikaru Ota and Yuya Ogo gave the Yankees a one-run lead. However, in the top of the fifth, Takahiro Norimoto pitcher, who was on second, hit an RBI single from third base with one out to make the score 5-3.

3rd Naoto Nishiguchi pitcher, 4th Tomotaka Matsui pitcher connected with no runs, but the bats struggled in front of the opposing pitcher after the fifth inning. After the bottom of the seventh, rain caused the game to end with a 5-3 lead. In the batting lineup, which totaled 7 hit 3 runs, Ota had a 2 hit 2 RBI mark.

1234567 Total
Ya 4000100 5
Easy 0003000 3

Ya ○ Yasuhiro Ogawa - Kohei Suzuki - Satoshi Miyagawa
Easy ● Masaru Fujii-Takahiro Norimoto-Naoto Nishiguchi-Tomotaka Matsui

Text by Aoi Nemoto