There were all sorts of strings attached to Hisayoshi Chono's last at-bat of the regular season.
For starters, his pinch-hit, come-from-behind grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning on Saturday gave the Yomiuri Giants a win in their final game of the season. It also made an 18-game winner out of starter Tetsuya Utsumi (18-6), who sat in the dugout in line to take a loss and instead ended up tying the Chunichi Dragons' Kazuki Yoshimi for the Central League lead in wins.
The hit was the 1,000th grand slam in CL history as well as the team's first walk-off grand slam since Isao Hirano hit one against the Hiroshima Carp in 1971.