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Some rights reserved.
A reminder of why Nippon Pro Baseball started 18 days late came in the fourth inning, but the Tohoku Rakuten Eagles kept coming all day.
The Eagles overcame one of the game’s top lefties and an earthquake to come away with a 6-4 Opening Day victory Tuesday afternoon over the defending Japan Series champions at QVC Marine Stadium.
Ace Hisashi Iwakuma held the Chiba Lotte Marines to a run over the first eight innings and Motohiro Shima belted a tiebreaking three-run homer in the seventh to give residents still recovering from the March 11 Tohoku quake an emotional boost, while making new skipper Senichi Hoshino a winner in his Pacific League managerial debut.
A tremor halted play for a couple of minutes in the fourth inning, but Shima had Rakuten fans rocking in the seventh. He sent the first offering from Yoshihisa Naruse (0-1) over the fence in right field and into a section of ecstatic Eagles fans.
Iwakuma (1-0), who celebrated his 30th birthday with a win, fanned four, allowed seven hits and walked two before departing following Kazuya Fukuura’s three-run homer in the ninth.
“I wasn’t able to pitch well all the way to the end, but everyone just wanted to go out and battle together and I think this victory is in part because of the fans who came to see us today and the people back in the Tohoku region who are doing their best.”
Naruse, who fanned 605 batters over the past four seasons, punched out nine with no walks and five hits before Shima took him deep with two down in the seventh.
“The fans of Tohoku are battling with us and I think their support helped carry that ball out,” said the catcher, who dropped the ball on a play at the plate in the fourth inning that put the Eagles behind 1-0.
Righty Ryan Speier nailed it down for Iwakuma -- who improved to 3-3 in season openers -- retiring both batters he faced.
LIONS 12, FIGHTERS 3
Hiroyuki Nakajima capped a head-shaking, four-run seventh-inning rally off Yu Darvish (0-1), blasting a three-run homer to the opposite field as Saitama Seibu rallied past Hokkaido Nippon Ham at Sapporo Dome.
Nakajima followed Hideto Asamura’s tiebreaking RBI single with his first longball this season and second hit of the night off the Fighters’ ace.
HAWKS 2, BUFFALOES 2
Mitsutaka Goto tied the score in the ninth with a solo blast off ace Tsuyoshi Wada and both bullpens shut down the scoring over the next three innings in a 12-inning tie at Kyocera Dome Osaka.
CENTRAL LEAGUE
BAYSTARS 5, DRAGONS 4
Reserve outfielder Yuta Naito bounced a grounder through a drawn-in infield in the bottom of the ninth inning as Yokohama edged defending CL-champion Chunichi at Yokohama Stadium for its first Opening Day victory in eight years.
Yuki Yoshimura went 4-for-4 with an RBI and got the rally going in the ninth with his second double of the game. The BayStars tagged super set-up man Takuya Asao (0-1) for the loss, stringing together three hits off the righty in their last at-bat.
Shuichi Murata had two hits, including a double, and four Yokohama relievers combined to keep the Dragons scoreless over the final four innings before Naito left the BayStars walking in sunshine.
TIGERS 7 CARP 4
Takahiro Arai had perhaps the most stressful spring season in NPB history. He had a sigh-of-relief moment in the opener, collecting two hits and an RBI as Hanshin battled back to top Hiroshima at Koshien Stadium.
Arai, who negotiated the timing of the CL's delayed Opening Day start with officials, singled to even the score in a three-run sixth and doubled and scored in the eighth to back Atsushi Nomi (1-0), who surrendered nine hits and three walks but used seven strikeouts to wiggle through 6.2 innings for the victory.
Last year’s Sawamura Award-winner Kenta Maeda (0-1) got slapped around for five runs on six hits and a walk over six innings to suffer the loss.
GIANTS 9, SWALLOWS 2
Hisayoshi Chono blasted a three-run shot in the seventh inning and added a two-run single in the eighth -- his third hit -- to tie the club record in RBIs in an opener, and Shun Tono (1-0) carried a no-no into the seventh inning as Yomiuri downed Tokyo Yakult in Ube.