959Lotte Marines slugger Koki Yamaguchi swatted three homers on Thursday night (Photo: Daily Sports)
One of the most eventful weeks in Nippon Professional Baseball this season is in the books, featuring Yoshihiro Maru’s cycle, Koki Yamaguchi’s three-homer game, Kazuma Okamoto’s triumphant return, Tatsuya Imai’s shutout, and the Nippon-Ham Fighters’ pivotal sweep of the SoftBank Hawks.
Also, offense is way up since the All-Star break, as the balls have been flying out of the park at a much higher rate. Is the dead ball era finally coming to a close?
Tuesday (August 19)
Yoshihiro Maru’s cycle
Yoshihiro Maru (Giants) became the first NPB player since Yasutaka Shiomi in 2021 to hit for the cycle in a 15-2 thrashing of the Swallows.
Yuki Nomura (Fighters) hit a walk-off three-run double to defeat the Buffaloes, 6-5.
Elehuris Montero (Carp) hit a two-run shot in the ninth to top the BayStars, 3-1.
Wednesday (August 20)
Naoyuki Uwasawa’s 12 strikeouts
Naoyuki Uwasawa (Hawks) struck out 12 batters over seven innings in a 5-4 win against the Lions.
Franmil Reyes (Fighters) hit two home runs in a 6-5 victory versus the Buffaloes.
Sandro Fabian (Carp) went 5 for 5 with a homer in a 7-4 loss to the BayStars.
Thursday (August 21)
Koki Yamaguchi’s two dingers in the 4th inning
Koki Yamaguchi (Marines) hit three home runs, including two in one inning, in a 12-10 slugfest versus the Eagles. It was also his third straight game with a homer, and his fourth consecutive at-bat going deep.
Masahiro Tanaka (Giants) won his 199th game between MLB and NPB.
Yuhei Nakamura (Swallows) picked up his 1,000th career hit.
The Buffaloes smashed four homers in a 10-0 blowout of the Fighters.
Friday (August 22)
Yakult-Hanshin Highlights
Kona Takahashi (Lions) tossed eight scoreless frames in a 3-0 win against the Marines.
Haruto Takahashi (Tigers) fanned 11 batters over six innings of one-run ball against the Swallows.
Kazuma Okamoto (Giants) hit his first homer since returning from injury.
Saturday (August 23)
Tatsuya Imai’s shutout
Tatsuya Imai (Lions) spun a complete game shutout with 12 strikeouts versus the Marines.
Kazuma Okamoto (Giants) hit two home runs in a 4-1 win over the BayStars.
Franmil Reyes (Fighters) hit two home runs in an 8-3 win over the Hawks.
Sunday (August 24)
Nippon-Ham-SoftBank Highlights
Teruaki Sato (Tigers) hit his 32nd homer in an 8-1 win against the Swallows.
Munetaka Murakami (Swallows) hit his 10th homer, doing so in just 25 games.
Richard Sunagawa (Giants) hit a 479 ft homer off the billboard at Tokyo Dome.
The Fighters walked off the Hawks to complete the sweep, cutting the PL pennant gap to just half a game.