After a string of disappointments, Japanese pro baseball's most highly regarded pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, threw a record 14-strikeout gem for the first Japan Series win of his career.
Yamamoto held Hanshin to a run by pitching out of a second-inning bases-loaded jam, and his teammates immediately rewarded him with a one-run lead. Yamamoto had allowed 16 runs in his previous three postseason games.
For the second straight year, Yamamoto had put the Buffaloes in a hole by losing the first game of the Japan Series, but unlike 2022, when he was hurt in the opener and unable to return, he returned to the mound Saturday to help Orix come from behind in Game 6.
Despite surrendering the early lead, he snuffed out a Tigers rally and after a run-saving catch in the fourth by unlikely right fielder, catcher Tomoya Mori, Yamamoto found his rhythm, retiring the next eight batters.
Yamamoto, who this season recorded a no-hitter for the second straight year, stayed in the game after throwing 102 pitches through seven and went out for the ninth after throwing 125 through eight. In the ninth he struck out two more batters to send this thrilling series to a seventh game on Sunday.
