Beak breaker ...
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Swallows’ CL lead falls to 3.5 as Dragons win
The Yakult Swallows are making things hard on themselves. The Chunichi Dragons are looking a lot more like the defending Central League champions.
Kazuki Yoshimi held the front-running Swallows to a run over seven innings, and the Chunichi bullpen made it stand up in a 3-2 win over Yakult on a day the Dragons announced they won't offer skipper Hiromitsu Ochiai a contract for next season.
The 57-year-old manager, who led the Dragons to CL titles in 2004, 2006 and 2010 and a Japan Series title in 2007, is still trying to guide Chunichi to back-to-back CL crowns for the first time in club history. He got a little closer in the opener of a four-game series at Nagoya Dome.
The Swallows, who have had little wind beneath their wings since the All-Star break, and the Dragons are tied with 60 wins, but Yakult has seven fewer losses.
Yoshimi (15-3) allowed a run in the first inning, but gained better control as the game wore on and won his seventh straight decision. He leads the CL in wins, despite a late start to the season, and ERA at 1.60.
Tony Blanco made Chunichi’s first hit count on the scoreboard, knocking home a run that sparked three straight hits for a three-run rally in the sixth inning. Motonobu Tanishige’s two-out double off the wall in left center scored the hard-chugging Blanco and put the Dragons on top 2-1, and Takehiro Donoue slapped a single to left to make it 3-1.
Takuya Asao allowed a single and two hard-hit outs in a scoreless eighth, while Hitoki Iwase sweated through a jam -- allowing a run on three hits -- but preserved the lead for his 31st save.
The Swallows are 9-4-3 vs. the Dragons.
BAYSTARS 4, CARP 3
Tatsuhiko Kinjo keyed a three-run third with a two-run single as Yokohama KO’d Hiroshima's Kenta Maeda after four innings in a win at home.
Maeda (9-10), last year’s Sawamura Award winner, surrendered four runs (three earned) on seven hits and a walk in his shortest start of the season. Three Yokohama relievers held Hiroshima hitless over the final four innings.