Samurai Japan's warm-up effort on Monday came out half baked, as manager Hiroki Kokubo's squad lost 1-0 to a team selected from the rosters of the Pacific League's Fukuoka Softbank Hawks and Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters.
Samurai Japan will open its five-game series against a team of visiting big leaguers on Wednesday in Osaka at Kyocera Dome.
Before 27,446 at Fukuoka's Yafuoku Dome, Japan fell behind in the fourth inning, when Hanshin Tigers lefty Minoru Iwata surrendered an RBI single to cleanup hitter Tomoaki Egawa of the Hawks. The Fighters' Takuya Nakashima singled and stole second with one out, and Egawa, a talented hitter who has spent his career in the shadow of Hawks teammate and Japan third baseman Nobuhiro Matsuda, lined an RBI single to left.