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Some rights reserved.
Certainly May is no time to look at the standings and no team in the Central League has more than 12 wins, but the 4-3 victory the Yokohama BayStars posted against the Yomiuri Giants Wednesday at Tokyo Dome put the usual "losing" suspects into the league’s top three.
Brett Harper turned a one-run deficit into a 4-3 lead with his sixth-inning, two-run blast to right off Giants rookie starter Hirokazu Sawamura (1-3) and the bullpen came through for the second consecutive night, holding Yomiuri scoreless for 4.2 innings as the BayStars won their fifth straight.
The win lifted the BayStars into third place and dropped the Giants into the CL cellar. In fact, two of the top three teams -- the BayStars (11-13) and Hiroshima Carp -- have never been in the Climax Series. The first-place Yakult Swallows reached the playoffs once, finishing third in 2009.
The Hanshin Tigers are just above the Giants in fifth, and the Chunichi Dragons are fourth.
Yokohama used seven pitchers to close it out for its longest winning since July 2009 and moved into third place this late in the season for the first time since August 2007
The Giants lost their third straight, despite sending out Sawamura, who has been effective but has lost three straight.
The righty got his first hit and first RBI in the fifth inning when the Giants put up three runs to take a 3-2 lead, but Harper erased that with his fourth longball.
PACIFIC LEAGUE
EAGLES 1, FIGHTERS 0
Satoshi Nagai (2-1) made the most of just his team’s second run in five games, tossing a four-hitter for his first shutout since last Sept. 14 as Rakuten topped Nippon Ham at The Kleenex Box.
Teppei Tsuchiya slugged his first homer, a solo shot in the sixth, for the game's only run -- just Rakuten’s second run in 42 innings.
HAWKS 5, BUFFALOES 3
Hitoshi Tamura socked a two-run homer to cap a three-run sixth inning that carried host SoftBank past Orix.
D.J. Houlton (4-1) fired his fifth straight quality start, allowing six hits and three walks with three Ks to win his fourth straight decision.
The other three games were rained out.
[Edited by: jgibson on May 12, 2011 11:57 PM]