One of the biggest surprises of the NPB season thus far has to be the play of the Orix Buffaloes.
The club is off to one of its best starts since being born from the merger of the Orix BlueWave and Kintetsu Buffaloes after the 2004 season and entered Saturday's games in first place in the Pacific League and tied with the Hiroshima Carp for the most wins in Japanese baseball.
Chihiro Kaneko, Yuki Nishi and Brandon Dickson have led the charge on the mound, while a healthy Wily Mo Pena is looking like an All-Star again for an offense that seems to be vastly improved over the woeful unit the club fielded in 2013.