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The story
In Pacific League play on August 23, the Chiba Lotte Marines edged the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters 3-2 to notch their third straight win. Fujiwara went 3-for-3 including a leadoff home run, Ogawa delivered the go-ahead RBI, and Jackson picked up his 9th win of the season. Meanwhile, on 5ch it was the usual free-for-all — Fighters fans getting mocked as “Ham-kasu” (“Ham-trash”), digs about SoftBank’s sign-stealing scandal getting dragged in for no reason, and worries that the Fighters have basically become a one-man Reyes show.
Nippon-Ham 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 | 2
Lotte 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 X | 3
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Source: nikkansports.com / Original article here
What people said
He was the losing pitcher two days ago
There goes the delusional idiot again
Prior offense
https://imgur.com/a/k6SR4Uj
Today's opponent was the Marines though?
That loaded-cash toilet-bowl team (a dig at SoftBank's big spending) is off-topic here
Bravo!!
Arihara escaped hell
Today's opponent was the Marines though?
too bad for you.
The sign-stealing Bank(s) lost, and that's 'bravo'?
Enough with that made-up nonsense
That'd be the Central League, wouldn't it
Every Pacific League fan already knows that
Nah, that's not it
There goes the Fighters' comeback pennant race 🤭
Get wrecked in Tokorozawa next week lol (Seibu's home turf)
They'll finally win next week, right?
It's not the Fighters that are hated —
it's Shinjo and his Hokkaido-native fanboys that are hated
Background and Key Points
The Pacific League is one of NPB’s two six-team circuits and, unlike the Central League, has used the designated hitter since 1975 — worth noting since Lotte’s win here was built on a leadoff bat (Fujiwara) and a reliable innings-eater (Jackson) rather than pitcher’s-spot maneuvering. The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, meanwhile, are a franchise in transition: they left the Sapporo Dome for the new ES CON FIELD HOKKAIDO in 2023 and are managed by Tsuyoshi Shinjo, the flamboyant former star who dubbed himself “BIG BOSS.” Their mascot, Koropokkuru, is drawn from Ainu folklore tied to Hokkaido. SoftBank, invoked repeatedly here even though they weren’t playing, carries baggage from unproven 2018-era allegations that they used a scoreboard camera to steal signs — a grudge Pacific League rivals still bring up reflexively.
The thread didn’t really split over the Lotte-Fighters game itself, which was fairly one-sided; the actual disagreement was over the “one-man Reyes team” framing of the Fighters. Some posters ran with it as proof Shinjo’s roster-building has produced a hollow team propped up by one import bat, while others pushed back that this narrative is exaggerated or “made-up.”
What outside readers will likely miss is that the SoftBank sign-stealing jabs are a non sequitur — several posters themselves note “today’s opponent was the Marines,” flagging that the Hawks bashing is just reflexive rivalry noise carried over from other games, not commentary on this result.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Baseball] Pacific League: M 3-2 F [8/23] — Lotte wins 3rd straight, Fujiwara homers leadoff + 3 hits, Ogawa’s go-ahead RBI, Jackson’s 9th win, Nippon-Ham drops another.”
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