It was somewhat ironic that Takayuki Kato delivered his best performance of the young season on a busy Friday night in the Pacific League.
The matchup everyone was talking about that night took place at Zozo Marine Stadium in Chiba, where the Chiba Lotte Marines’ Roki Sasaki locked horns with Orix Buffaloes ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto. There was also a matchup of former MLB pitchers that night in Sendai, where the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles’ Masahiro Tanaka and Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks veteran Tsuyoshi Wada were pitching for their respective teams.
With that much star power on the mound, there was scant limelight left for the game in Hokkaido, where Kato and the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters faced the Seibu Lions.
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