Plenty of glory for 'Guts' …

Ogasawara reaches 2,000 hits, but Giants fall

The player they call “Guts” reached the 2,000-hit mark, but he and the rest of the Yomiuri Giants couldn’t reach enough pitches to beat the Hanshin Tigers on Thursday in front a packed house at Tokyo Dome.

A solo home run by Kenji Jojima in the seventh inning off rookie Hirokazu Sawamura (2-1) broke a tie and gave the Tigers a 2-1 win.

Yomiuri's Michihiro Ogasawara laced a single up the middle off Tigers set-up man Hiroyuki Kobayashi in the eighth inning, making him the 38th player to reach a milestone that puts him in the Golden Players Club, reserved for position players with 2,000 or more hits, and pitchers with either 200 wins or 250 saves.

Guts, who began his career with Nippon Ham, reached the milestone in 1,736 games, making him the fourth-fastest player in history to hit that mark. Ogasawara is 2,000-for-6,350, with 371 homers and 1,112 RBIs in 14-plus seasons.

“Speaking on a personal level, I feel a little relieved,” Ogasawara said during a press conference following the game. “That’s because I haven’t been hitting as well as could have since the start of the season and I’ve been a burden on the team. But the manager stuck with me and kept putting me in the lineup, and the staff all the support has been great. I appreciate it very much,” added Ogasawara, who is hitting just .169.

“[The 2,000-hit mark] was definitely on my mind -- we don’t usually have that many TV cameras and newspaper photographers, so naturally I was thinking about it. I heard the sighs every time I made an out,” the 37-year-old admitted.

The Tigers didn’t let the bright lights get in the way of winning the three-game set. Keiichi Hirano had four hits -- including a double -- and lefty Minoru Iwata (1-3) won his first game since Oct. 4, 2009, holding the Giants to six hits with three walks and five Ks in a high-stress game.

“Yeah, a 2-1 game at Tokyo Dome can tire you out,” Hanshin skipper Akinobu Mayumi quipped afterward.

DRAGONS 8, SWALLOWS 3

Masahiro Araki sparked a five-run eighth inning with a two-run homer, his first of the year, and Kazuhiro Wada capped the rally with a two-run shot as visiting Chunichi broke up a close game to halt a six-game skid to Yakult to start the season.

Kazuki Yoshimi (2-0) held the hot-hitting Swallows to two runs, one earned, over seven innings, and Tony Blanco also homered for the Dragons, who had lost eight straight to Yakult, dating back to last season.

CARP 6, BAYSTARS 2

Bryan Bullington (4-0) became the first foreign pitcher to win his first starts for Hiroshima, going seven strong innings to beat Yokohama at The Zoom.

The righty allowed a run on five hits and a walk with two punchouts over seven frames, and Chad Tracy highlighted a five-run first inning with a two-run double. Tracy later added an RBI single as Hiroshima won the three-game set.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

EAGLES 4, HAWKS 0

Rookie lefty Takahiro Shiomi won in his pro debut, tossing six scoreless innings, and Takeshi Yamasaki had three hits, including two doubles and two RBIs, as Rakuten blanked SoftBank at Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome.

Yuichi Honda doubled in the fourth inning and has hit safely in all SoftBank’s 19 games since the start of the season. The PL record is 20.

LIONS 5, MARINES 3

Hideto Asamura, Ginjiro Sumitani and Jose Fernandez all hit solo shots, and Fumiya Nishiguchi (1-1) went seven strong innings as Seibu halted a six-game slide by beating Lotte at Seibu Dome.

Nishiguchi extended his record for active pitchers by winning a game for the 17th consecutive year since his season. He held the reigning Series champs to a run on five hits and a walk with four Ks as the Lions won their first game since April 23.

FIGHTERS 7, BUFFALOES 0

Micah Hoffpauir blasted a pair of longballs, a two-run shot and a solo blast, and Tomoya Yagi (1-0) worked five scoreless innings to earn his first win since last July 7 as Nippon Ham blanked Orix at Kyocera Dome Osaka.

Park Chan Ho (1-3) lasted just five innings, allowing five runs on seven hits and two walks with four Ks.