On 21 March, the opening match between Hokkaido Nippon-Ham and Tokyo Yakult in ES CON FIELD ended in a 5-2 win for Hokkaido Nippon-Ham.

In the bottom of the first inning, Hokkaido Nippon-Ham had back-to-back singles by Kengo Yoshida and Yuma Imagawa to put runners on first and second with one out, and Yuki Nomura took the lead on an RBI single. Reyes followed with a three-run shot from third base with one out to make it four runs in the first inning. They added one more run in the bottom of the sixth on a leadoff Kotaro Kiyomiya solo shot in the third.

On the other hand, starter Takayuki Kato pitcher held the opposing bats score closer less for two hit through three innings. He loaded the bases with two outs in the top of the fourth inning on back-to-back singles, but he was able to score only one run on a walk-off grounder and was removed after 6 innings of 97 pitches, 4 hit Hit by Pitch 6 strike out 1 runs. Starting in the seventh inning, Takahide Ikeda pitcher and Nao Miyanishi pitcher connected with one no-runs each. In the top of the ninth inning, Yukiya Saito pitcher gave up one run, but they held on to the lead and ended the game with a 5-2 lead.

win Hokkaido Nippon-Ham, starter Takashi Kato pitcher made the match with a stable pitch. Nomura scored five runs in a total of 7 hit, including No. 4 Nomura with 2 hit 1 RBI.

123456789 total
Ya 000100001 2
Day 40000100X 5

Ya ● Keiji Takahashi - Naofumi Kizawa - Chuuki Hasegawa - Kota Shoji - Noboru Shimizu
○ Takayuki Kato-Takahide Ikeda-Nao Miyanishi-Yukiya Saito

Text by Rihoko Niwa

・ Match details/video