SoftBank 4, at Rakuten 5

SENDAI, Japan (Interstat) — Itsuki Murabayashi delivered a perfect night at the plate, including a go-ahead, two-run double in the eighth inning, to propel the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles to a 5-4 comeback victory over the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks on Thursday evening at Kleenex Stadium Miyagi. In a game that defied pregame projections favoring the Hawks, the Golden Eagles snapped a three-game losing streak and handed SoftBank its first loss of the young Nippon Professional Baseball season. A crowd of 24,088 watched the back-and-forth contest, which lasted 2 hours, 59 minutes. The most important part of the game unfolded in… Read more...