With no All-Star Game, Yuki Yanagita held his own personal home run derby last week in Fukuoka.
The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles may have arrived from Sendai in first place and with NPB's hottest hitter, Hideto Asamura, but it was Yanagita whose star shone brightest as the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks took four out of six in the series.
Yanagita connected on five home runs during the series, including a sayonara shot in the 10th inning on Friday that gave the club its 1,000th victory in its home park. He has eight overall, second only to Asamura, who has nine, in Japanese baseball.