Fighting chance ...
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Some rights reserved.
The SoftBank Hawks have been taking it to everyone so far this season, but Nippon Ham showed them on Friday that it’s going to be a fight to the finish.
Yu Darvish (9-2) scattered seven hits, including a solo homer for the Hawks’ only run, and fanned 13, while Sho Nakata came through with a tiebreaking, bases-loaded double in the eighth for a 3-1 win at FYJ Dome.
The Hawks won interleague with an 18-4-2 run, but the Fighters were third at 16-8. The win left the second-place Fighters two games behind the Hawks in the Pacific League standings.
“SoftBank has been playing well and we wanted to show them that we're playing well too,” said Nakata, who sent a 3-1 pitch off the chalk down the left-field line to make Darvish the pitcher of record.
“It was a hitter’s count at 3-1, so I wanted to be aggressive from first pitch. Until the umpire called it, I didn't know if it was fair or foul.”
Nakata, who also singled, is 5-for-5 with the bases loaded this season and the fourth-year pro his 7-for-10 lifetime with the bags full--all seven hits coming consecutively since last Sept. 11--with 15 RBIs.
It was the 49th double-digit strikeout game for Darvish, who gave up a longball for the first time since Opening Day. Seventh-year pro Tomoaki Egawa, making his first start of the season in place of the injured Seiichi Uchikawa, hit the homer, his first in four seasons.
LIONS 7, EAGLES 4
Jose Fernandez blasted a two-run, ninth-inning homer to get Seibu even, and third-year pro Hideto Asamura capped a five-run rally with a three-run blast off Ryan Speier (1-2) for the third-year pro’s first walk-off homer as the Lions flexed their muscles late to stun Rakuten.
Fernandez also had a scoring flyball in the fifth, and Alex Graman (2-1) worked a perfect ninth for the victory.
BUFFALOES 6, MARINES 4
Mitsutaka Goto’s homer in the fifth padded Orix’s lead and Lee Seung Yeop also homered as the Buffaloes outlasted Lotte at The Q.
Hot-hitting Tomoyaka Sakaguchi, who led interleague play with a .412 average, had a single and a double as the third-place Buffaloes evened their record at 25-25.
CENTRAL LEAGUE
TIGERS 4, GIANTS 2
Matt Murton’s fourth-inning double broke a 2-2 tie after Yomiuri had tied the score the previous inning, and Minoru Iwata (4-5) and three relievers keep the scoreboard clean the rest of the way as Hanshin won in front of an overflow gathering at Koshien Stadium.
Iwata held the Giants to two runs on seven hits and a walk with five Ks over six innings, and Murton had two hits and three RBIs.
SWALLOWS 2, BAYSTARS 1
Josh Whitesell’s first walk-off homer in Japan came in the 10th inning and completed a dramatic comeback as Yakult edged Yokohama at Jingu Stadium.
Masayoshi Miwa raced home from second on pinch-hitter Yuichi Matsumoto’s two-out RBI infield single in the ninth to even the score and get starter Shohei Tateyama off the hook for a tough loss.
CARP 4, DRAGONS 1
Pinch-hitter Tomonori Maeda’s third hit of the season, a two-run double, broke a 1-1 tie and helped lift Hiroshima past Chunichi at The Zoom.
Bryan Bullington (6-3) baffled the Dragons for the second time in as many starts against them, holding Chunichi to a run on five hits, a walk and a hit batter over eight innings.
[Edited by: jgibson on Jun 26, 2011 7:43 PM]