Baseball: Murakami duel might be bittersweet ending for Yamamoto

Rookie Shoki Murakami added more laurels to his sparkling season as he outdueled fellow 25-year-old Yoshinobu Yamamoto to win Saturday’s Japan Series opener 8-0 in what might have been the Orix Buffaloes ace’s last game in Japan.

Yamamoto, who led the Pacific League in ERA, strikeouts, wins and winning percentage the past three seasons, is a likely candidate to be posted to MLB this year, and eventually will be looking forward to bigger and better things despite losing Japan Series Game 1 for the second straight season.

Saturday marked the second time he had gone head-to-head against Murakami,...