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Matsui smacks walk-off HR off Okajima as Eagles win
A walk-off homer that kept his team in the Pacific League playoff picture should have made Rakuten Eagles heel-clicking happy. Instead, the grumpy version of Senichi Hoshino barked about his team’s 3-1 win in 10 innings over the SoftBank Hawks on Monday.
A pair of returnees from the big leagues were the key figures as Kazuo Matsui belted a sayonara shot off Hideki Okajima (0-2) for Rakuten’s sixth walk-off win as the fourth-place Eagles moved to within three games back of third-place SoftBank.
Eagles fans and players enjoyed the typical walk-off celebration, but Hoshino seemed in no mood to join the party.
“It was about time,” the skipper said of Matsui’s third sayonara hit this season. “I guess he felt responsible [for the game going into extra innings].”
Rakuten ace Masahiro Tanaka went pitch-for-pitch with SoftBank top pitcher Tadashi Settsu, leaving after allowing a run on seven hits with no walks and 13 strikeouts over nine innings. Settsu departed after eight innings, yielding just one run on seven hits with nine Ks.
“You can’t give up the first run when you’re pitching against Settsu, but it’s still too bad Ma-kun didn’t come of this with a win,” Hoshino snapped.
Koji Aoyama (5-4) worked a scoreless 10th to pick up the win.
MARINES 5, BUFFALOES 0
Seth Greisinger (11-8) tossed a three-hitter for his first shutout since April 21, 2009 [as a member of the Yomiuri Giants] and Yoshifumi Okada had two hits and two RBIs as Lotte kept its playoff hopes alive with a win over Orix at The Q.
Greisinger walked none, hit a batter and fanned five in his fourth career shutout in six seasons in Japan, helping to send Orix to its 11th straight loss -- its longest skid in 53 years when the franchise was the Hankyu Braves.