A ’Star is torn ...

Dragons ruin Sledge’s 1st career 3-HR game

YOKOHAMA--Terrmel Sledge had the game of his career, Masahiko Morino had the last laugh.
Sledge slugged three homers and drove in seven, but Morino’s solo homer in the fourth inning put the Central League defending champion Chunichi Dragons up by a run and they held off the Yokohama BayStars 8-7 on Wednesday at Yokohama Stadium.
The BayStars, who have finished in the cellar the past three seasons, won the opener and were trying to get back-to-back wins to start the season for the first time in 11 years.
But not even Sledge’s best game as a pro was enough.
“For Sledge to do all he did, we really wanted to win the game,” said second-year Yokohama skipper Takao Obana. “But we didn’t give up and hung in there.”
The Dragons put up three runs in the first inning, but Sledge socked a two-run shot to get the BayStars to within a run.
The fourth-year outfielder, who spent two seasons with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham before coming to Yokohama, tied the score in the third inning with a three-run shot after the first two batters reached on Chunichi slipups.
A strikeout wild pitch put Takehiro Ishikawa on first and Tony Blanco misplayed Naoto Watanabe’s grounder into a first-and-second-no-out-situation. Sledge wasted little time taking a fastball deep to right to make it 5-5.
But Morino’s solo shot off Clayton Hamilton (0-1) put Chunichi ahead 6-5, and an RBI single in the fifth by Motonobu Tanishige and a pinch-hit solo blast by Nobumasa Fukuda in the seventh gave the Dragons the eight runs they needed.
Sledge went deep again in the bottom of the seventh, a two-run opposite-field shot that got the BayStars to within a run, but Takuya Asao, Tuesday’s loser, and Hitoki Iwase nailed it down for Kenichi Nakata (1-0), who struggled through six innings.

GIANTS 3, SWALLOWS 0
Tetsuya Utsumi (1-0) fired 7.2 scoreless innings, and Alex Ramirez and Yoshinobu Takahashi cracked back-to-back solo blasts in the fourth inning en route to a shutout of Tokyo Yakult in Kyushu.
Utsumi scattered eight hits and a walk, while fanning four, and veteran Michihiro Ogasawara had two hits to give him 1,991 in his 14-plus seasons.

TIGERS 2, CARP 1
Jason Standridge (1-0) held Hiroshima to one run on two hits and two walks over seven innings, and Matt Murton’s fifth-inning RBI single broke a 1-1 tie as Hanshin won for the second straight day.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

EAGLES 5, MARINES 1
Darrell Rasner (1-0) limited the defending Japan Series champions to a run on four hits and two walks over six innings as Rakuten clinched the series victory in its three-game set with a win at QVC Marine Field.
Ryo Hijirisawa had two RBI singles to give the Eagles the lead, and Takeshi Yamasaki belted his first longball of the season, a two-out, three-run shot in the seventh inning that padded the lead.
Yamasaki became the ninth player to hit at least one homer in 21 consecutive seasons.

BUFFALOES 5, HAWKS 0
Hayato Terahara (1-0) fired his first shutout since Oct. 5, 2007 and Lee Seung Yeop blasted a three-run homer -- his first since last May 5 -- as Orix downed Fukuoka SoftBank at Kyocera Dome Osaka.
Terahara scattered five hits and a walk and with four strikeouts.

LIONS 8, FIGHTERS 3
Shogo Akiyama had three hits and two RBIs, and Hideto Asamura and Dee Brown each had two hits and a pair of RBIs as Saitama Seibu topped Hokkaido Nippon Ham for the second straight day at Sapporo Dome.