Quick turnaround …

Giants sweep as Pacific answers back on getaway day

The Pacific League answered the Central League’s opening salvo in interleague, capturing four of the six games on Day 2 of interleague, but it was the Yomiuri Giants who made the most noise with a sweep of their series with the Rakuten Eagles at the Kleenex Box.

Again an unlikely hero stopped up for the Giants, this time third-year infielder Taishi Ota, whose first pro hit -- a fluttering blooper to center -- drove in a pair of runs in the 10th inning as Yomiuri outlasted the Eagles 6-4.

The night before, Hidetoshi Tsuburaya won it for Yomiuri with his second career hit in four-plus seasons.

Shinnosuke Abe, activated this season for the first time on Tuesday, wasted little time in his chase for 250 homers, slugging a pair and reaching the milestone in the seventh inning.

Romulo Sanchez (0-2) lost to the Giants for the second straight night, getting through the ninth inning before allowing a pair of runs in the 10th. He couldn’t close it out the previous night, allowing two runs across after getting the first two batters out in the ninth.

Masato Nakamura ripped a two-run homer in the sixth and threw out a runner at the plate in the ninth, but the Eagles never had the lead.

DRAGONS 3, MARINES 2

Maximo Nelson (3-1) held Lotte to two runs over 6.2 innings, and Chunichi got a two-run blast from Ryosuke Hirata in the second and a go-ahead solo shot from Tony Blanco in the fourth and used strong pitching the rest of the way to close out a sweep in a Japan Series rematch at the Q.

It was Hirata’s first longball of the season and helped Nelson, who lowered his ERA to 2.27, earn his third win. Takuya Asao got the final four outs to nail down his first save and put Chunichi over .500 for the first time this season.

FIGHTERS 3, SWALLOWS 0

Yu Darvish (5-1) fired eight innings of five-hit ball, and Sho Nakata, Makoto Kaneko and Atsunori Inaba each drove in runs as Nippon Ham blanked Yakult at Sapporo Dome.

Darvish fanned five with no walks and a hit batter, and Hisahi Takeda finished up in the ninth for his 10th save.

HAWKS 9, CARP 0

Fourth-year righty D.J. Houlton (5-1) tossed his second shutout in Japan in less than a month -- his first came on April 27 -- a two-hitter, and Hitoshi Tamura led two other players with two hits, slapping an RBI double in the third as SoftBank routed Hiroshima.

It was the first double-figured strikeout game for Houlton, who fanned 10 and didn’t walk a man to win his fifth straight decision. It was the third consecutive start in which Hiroshima's Junpei Shinoda (2-3) has been knocked around. He allowed seven runs, five earned, on six hits and three walks in just three innings.

BUFFALOES 2, TIGERS 0

Alfredo Figaro (2-2) worked 6.2 scoreless innings and two relievers finished off the shutout as Orix topped Hanshin to split that Kansai derby.

So Taguchi got the start and went 2-for-4 with the game’s first RBI. Tomotaka Sakaguchi also had an RBI to back Figaro, who worked around eight hits, a walk and a hit batter with the help of four Ks.

LIONS 5, BAYSTARS 2

Hiroyuki Nakajima cracked a two-run homer in the first inning and added an RBI single in the third, and Kazuhisa Ishii (2-1) fanned 10 and held Yokohama to a run on six hits over seven as Seibu won at home.

Yokohama’s Shuichi Murata doubled in the sixth inning for the 1,000th hit of his career, which began in 2003.