Seibu went out to a 1-0 lead in the second when leftfielder Kazuhiro Wada walked and first baseman Masahide Kaizuka singled to right. One out later, shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima wacked a breaking ball down the leftfield line to plate Wada for the game's first run. It also put him atop the circuit's RBI race with 30. Kaizuka was out at the plate on the attempt to score from first. 

They made more hay in the fourth, as Wada walked with one down and Kaizuka whistled a two bagger into the leftcenter alley to allow Wada putting it in fourth and getting on home. Rightfielder Hiroyuki Oshima walked. Nakajima slapped a fastball back through the middle and Kaizuka was in on the single. Catcher Toru Hosokawa doubled into the leftcenter gap to turn Oshima in for a 4-0 advantage. 

However, Lotte halved that in the fourth on a single to right by shortstop Makoto Kosaka, a single to left from second baseman Koichi Hori and an RBI double into the rightfield corner by Kazuya Fukuura. One out later, leftfielder Benny Agbayani flied out to center and Hori tagged up and hustled in to make it 4-2 Seibu.

Wada, though, displayed good selectivity once more in the fifth against a guy who normally gives him a lot of headaches, air mailing one into the leftfield seats to enhace the Seibu position to 5-2. 

Lotte came within a hair's breadth of cancelling most of that disadvantage in the home version. Catcher Tasuku Hashimoto doubled down the leftfield line and went to third on a groundout.  Kosaka hooked a deep fly ball down the rightfield line. It settled into the seats near the foul pole, but was ruled foul. Manager Bobby Valentine was out of the dugout like his pants were on fire and was redfaced, the veins in his neck reportedly visible while he verbally fricaseed the first base umpire for seven minutes, insisting it was fair by four feet. He also wanted the umpire to get a second opinion from another member of the umpiring crew. That didn't happen, the call stood and, somehow, Valentine wasn't ejected. Kosaka walked, as did Hori, to load the bases and bring the winning run to the plate in the form of former batting champion Fukuura. Seibu shot caller Tsutomu Itoh resorted to Hoshino. Fukuura struckout. Seung-yeop Lee was next and wangled a walk to force Hashimoto in. It stopped right there, though, as Agbayani grounded to second for the third out. 

Lotte put men on second and third in the seventh with one out, but Lee popped out and Agbayani grounded out and they never had another hit 
the rest of the game. 

On the controversial foul call, Valentine asserted, "if that is fair, it changes the entire complexion of the game." 

It is Golden Week in Japan, a time when three national holidays occur within a short time period, so most Japanese get the entire week off. 
Attendance for the six games on the schedule was excellent, averaging well over 40,000 a contest. 34,000 were at this one. 

Ishii, even if his command was off, was still clocked at 92. 

Nakajima is batting .349 with runners in scoring position. Another 15 RBIs and he will almost certainly be an all star for the first time. 

In the first, Kanemura walked leftfielder Yoshitomo Tani and rightfielder Roosevelt Brown with two outs, but third baseman Kazuhiko Shiotani, who had 13 RBIs coming in, grounded out. 

Fighters centerfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo, making his first start in five games, leadoff the bottom bit by lining a shot off of Taninaka's right knee for an infield hit. After his leg was looked at, Taninaka resumed his duties and induced a grounder to short from rightfielder Yoshinori Ueda. Third baseman Michihiro Ogasawara (.463 OBP) walked. One out later, leftfielder Angel Echevarria singled to center for an RBI. First baseman Kuniyuki Kimoto scorched a shot off the gloe of shortstop Mitsutaka Goto and Ogasawara sped in for a 2-0 advantage.

Orix evened it, however, in the third when Manabu Satake doubled down the rightfield line and, one out later, Brown howitzered a Kanemura delivery into the rightcenterfield bleachers to make it 2-2.

Nippon Ham pulled in front again in the sixth, as Kimoto singled to center and catcher Shinji Takahashi thumped a long drive to center. The ball either hit the rubber lining at the top of the wall or it  carromed off a fan and back on to the playing field. In any event, it was ruled a home run. Orix manager Haruki Ihara chugged out to second base and argued that the ball indeed bounced off the top of the fence and should have been ruled in play and not a homer. The call stood and it was 4-2 Fighters. 

Makoto Suzuki entered from the bullpen for Orix in the seventh and was responsible for allowing this game to become out of reach for his side. Ueda walked. Ogasawara singled to center. DH Fernando Seguignol walked to juice the bags. Echevarria flew out to right and  Ueda tagged up and scored. Another run then somehow scored in this sequence to make it 6-2. Kimoto singled to right and Seguignol came around for a 7-2 lead. Six of the final seven Orix batters went without successfully invading the basepaths and this one was a memory. 

Suzuki's ERA is now 9.38. How long is Ihara going to keep using him?

Sapporo-born pop singer Maki Oguro sang the Japanese national anthem before the game. 

Nagisa Arakaki had by far his best outing of the year  by going nine innings of one run, eight hit ball on an excessive 161 pitches. Shinji Kurano, who had a Pacific League record seven straight holds recently, then came in and only obtained one out to lose it. 

Former Hanshin sidearmer Tetsuro Kawajiri went all the way on just 130 deliveries, permitting one run on eight hits and reducing his ERA to 1.84. 

Buffaloes rightfielder Koichi Isobe crushed a fastball into the rightfield bleachers for a 1-0 lead with one out in the second. First baseman Hirotoshi Kitagawa singled to center. Takano singled to right. Shortstop Masahiro Abe walked to load the bases. Catcher Akihito Fujii lofted a fly ball to Daiei rightfielder Kazuhiko Miyaji, who gloved ithe ball and gunned it to the plate, where Kitagawa was tagged out for an inning ending double play.

Arakaki struckout third baseman Norihiro Nakamura with two outs and the bases loaded in the fifth to escape that difficulty. Daiei shortstop Munenori Kawasaki was thrown out trying to steal third in the sixth to spoil a possible RBI opportunity there. Kintetsu then blew a two on, nobody out opportunity in the seventh and it continued to be 1-0. 

Daiei rookie Kenji Akashi then picked the right kind of first pro knock to draw his side even in the eighth, as he cannonaded a slider up the rightcenter gap for a pinch hit triple and scored on Kawasaki's sac fly to right. 

The Hawks could have won it in the ninth when they had two on and one out, but leftfielder Pedro Valdez grounded into a twin killing to sabotage it. 

After Kurano ascended the hill in the tenth, Nakamura and Isobe each walked with one gone. Kitagawa singled to left to pack the sacks. Takano flared one into rightcenter and the game was over. 

Akashi is an 18 year old drafted on the fourth round right out of high school who was batting .333 with 11 steals in 19 games in the Western League. The last time that Daiei promoted a newly graduated schoolboy was Kenji Johjima in 1995. 

Kawajiri surpassed 1000 career innings in this contest and was clocked at around 85mph. 

For Takano, it was his sixth lifetime four hit exhibition.