2022 Seibu Lions Weekly Digest: Yamakawa's resurgence continues in Golden Week

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The Saitama Seibu Lions had a successful 4-2 week against the Chiba Lotte Marines and Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters for the homestand and Golden Week holiday. 

With these wins, the Lions are in A-class with a 3.5 game lead on the Orix Buffaloes. 

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Chiba Lotte Marines

The Lions took two out of three with quality starts from Kaito Yoza and Shunsuke Sato. Hotaka Yamakawa had two home runs in the series and Takeya Nakamura hit his first of the season in Game 3.

Yuto Koga made his debut on Thursday and called a good enough game for a shutout. 

In Wednesday's loss, Wataru Matsumoto struggled as he couldn't last three innings.  

Game 1: Lions 4 Marines 2

Game 2: Marines 7 Lions 5

Game 3: Lions 7 Marines 0

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Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters

The Lions were aided by more offense from Yamakawa with multiple home runs, including a 2-HR game as the only offense for Sunday's win. 

Kona Takahashi had another strong outing while Dietrich Enns picked up his second win of the season with a six inning performance. 

Saturday's loss had Tetsuya Utsumi reach the career milestone of 2,000 innings pitched as he ended up with a no decision due to a lack of run support. 

A costly accident had Sosuke Genda injure his foot when a foul tip made hard contact off of it. Rookie Seigo Nakayama was called up and his fielding mistakes were a reason for the only loss of this series. 

Game 4: Lions 5 Fighters 0

Game 5: Fighters 3 Lions 2

Game 6: Lions 5 Fighters 1

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This team can be both fun and frustrating at the same time with Yamakawa carrying this offense for most part. 

Let's hope Genda isn't out for long. For a half-full glass, the pitching and Yamakawa are bright spots, yet the hitting is still abysmal for half-empty reasons. 

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