Orix Buffaloes ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto went head to head with World Baseball Classic teammate Hiromi Ito and just barely scraped out a 1-0 victory over the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters on Saturday.
Ito (7-8) was in top for at Es Con Field Hokkaido, allowing a run on two first-inning hits while striking out 11 without a walk over the distance against the Pacific League leaders.
While Orix's run was as close as can be, with Ryoma Ikeda doubling and barely beating the tag on a good throw to the plate on a one-out Keita Nakagawa single, Yamamoto (13-5) was often under the gun with runners on base.
"In terms of how well we pitched, Ito was better than me today, but I was able to hang in there when I had to," Yamamoto said. "Ito is a good pitcher, so I knew today was going to be a battle."
Yamamoto faced a pair of two-on, no-out jams but got three straight outs both times and protected his lead for seven innings. He struck out nine and walked three while surrendering four hits.
Soichiro Yamazaki worked a scoreless eighth before veteran closer Yoshihisa Hirano earned his 24th save.
Yamamoto, the winner of the last two Sawamura Awards as Japan's most impressive starting pitcher, entered the game with a PL-low 1.42 ERA.
Elsewhere, the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles came from behind to beat the second-place Chiba Lotte Marines 5-3, while the third-place Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks downed the Seibu Lions 6-2.
In the Central League, the second-place Hiroshima Carp held off the last-place Chunichi Dragons 3-1 behind a complete-game victory from Masato Morishita (8-3), the league-leading Hanshin Tigers came from behind to beat the Tokyo Yakult Swallows 6-5, and the third-place DeNA BayStars hammered the Yomiuri Giants 13-4.