The Tokyo Yakult Swallows were in a bit of a bind on Thursday night. They went into the bottom of the ninth of their game against the Yomiuri Giants having been held hitless the entire game by Tomoyuki Sugano, Rubby De La Rosa and Seishu Hatake and now had to face the Giants hard throwing closer Thyago Vieira. The one thing they had going for them is that they couldn't lost the game - Swallows starter Juri Hara along with a trio Swallows relievers had held the Giants scoreless. But they'd like to avoid the ignominy of getting no-hit as well as take advantage of the Tigers losing to the Baystars to increase their Central League lead.
With one out, Yasutaka Shiomi hit a ground ball that went just under the glove of third baseman Kazuma Okamoto for Yakult's first hit of the game. Norichika Aoki followed him with a strike out but Shiomi stole second to move into scoring position with two outs. The next batter was Tetsuto Yamada who hit a soft ground ball to shortstop Hayato Sakamoto. Sakamoto made a hurried throw to first baseman Akihiro Wakabayashi (who had started the game at second base but move to first as part of a double switch) couldn't handle the throw. Shiomi rounded third and headed for home, scoring without a throw as Wakabayashi was never able to hold onto the ball. The Swallows went from being no-hit to walking off a 1-0 victory in the space of a few minutes. Here's the game highlights - the ninth inning highlights start at around 1:36:
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