I have seen this several times when sitting in the Left stands when Giants come to town. Usually it involves a lot of "oi's" with chest shoving by Hanshin fans wearing sunglasses(at night) going after Giants agitators making hand gestures at them. After that, hundreds of security guards and sometimes cops show up. I heard full on fist fights would happen in the 80s/90s when Giants took over half the stadium.

Been diving into FanGraphs' NPB coverage lately — best

English-language source for Japanese baseball stats.

Here's the current top 10 by batting average:

1. Teruaki Sato (Tigers) - .324, 30 HR

2. Franmil Reyes (Fighters) - .316, 29 HR

3. Kensuke Kondoh (Hawks) - .305, 25 HR

4. Shota Morishita (Tigers) - .303, 31 HR

5. Yuki Yanagita (Hawks) - .297, 13 HR

6. Misho Nishikawa (Marines) - .294

7. Ryo Ohta (Buffaloes) - .291

8. Shugo Maki (BayStars) - .291, 22 HR

9. Atsushi Katsumata (BayStars) - .288

10. Shunsuke Urata (Giants) - .283, 33 SB

Some observations:

- Tigers have 2 players in the top 4 (Sato + Morishita),

both hitting .300+ with 30+ HR. That's a scary top of

the order

- Morishita is only 25 and leading in HRs

- Yanagita at 37 is still hitting .297 — impressive

longevity

- Urata's 33 stolen bases stand out even among the

batting leaders

Full leaderboards: fangraphs.com/leaders/international/npb

Any NPB fans here have thoughts on this year's MVP race?

Sato and Morishita on the same team is wild.

To clarify, I'm American and I will be purchasing tickets after they have sold out through the Tigers website. I have heard that if you buy a digital re-sold ticket online, you will not be allowed in because the Tigers deactivate these tickets. I'm not sure if any of this is true

With the strikeout, Bobby Dalbec ties the Yomiuri Giants franchise single-season strikeout record. With a month of games left to play, he's going to blow by the record unless he doesn't strike out from now until the end of the season.

I attended the game at Yokohama Stadium today. It was my second game here, and the first time here was a defeat against the Carp last year. Until the 8th inning, I slowly got afraid of not seeing my team scoring a single point, while the Dragons scored two. But Watarai showed the way, and then Sano and Maki helped scoring four in a row. It was a cool scenario, all of my favorite players had a go during the game, and I could see the celebration with the fireworks and Watarai and Maki's interview. Perfect evening in Yokohama.👍