Combination punch …

Hawks top Fighters in opener of 3-game showdown

The Nippon Ham Fighters got the first shot in, but the SoftBank Hawks used a 1-2 punch to knock them back in the Pacific League pennant race.

Hiroki Yamada scattered six hits with no walks and two Ks, and Munenori Kawasaki had a pair of RBI singles as SoftBank extended its PL lead to 1.5 games with a 4-1 win at home on Friday night.

Yamada (7-5), who hasn’t been sharp in recent weeks, won for the first time since June 6 by holding the Fighters to a run over 6.2 innings.

“I had been hurting the pitching staff, the other players and the fans, so I didn’t care what I had to do, I wanted to win today,” said Yamada.

“I was really able to hang in there and battle for the win tonight. I hope this can be a good start for me in the second half of the season.”

Sho Nakata put the Fighters up in the first with a clutch double to score Yoshio Itoi, who had singled with two down.

But SoftBank got to Bobby Keppel (friend of JBD) in the third on Kawasaki’s RBI single and Yuichi Honda’s sac fly. Kawasaki added a run-scoring single in the seventh and Jose Ortiz blasted his fifth longball, a solo shot, in the eighth to close out the scoring as the Hawks improved to 5-4 against the Fighters this season.

Keppel (9-3) allowed seven hits and three walks with no Ks to suffer his first loss since June 26.

Brian Falkenborg nailed down his 10th save with a scoreless ninth.

EAGLES 4, MARINES 0

Satoshi Nagai (4-3) fired a two-hitter for his second shutout of the season and Rakuten used three extra-base hits to knock in three or its four runs in a shutout of Lotte at The Q.

Nagai walked one and fanned seven for his seventh career shutout and his first win since May 31. The Eagles’ Takeshi Yamasaki played in his 1,000th game as Rakuten moved a half-game behind Lotte for the third and final playoff spot.

Bill Murphy (2-2), making his first start since injuring himself while running the bases on May 24, suffered the loss.

BUFALLOES 6, LIONS 1

Takahiro “T.O.” Okada had three hits and two RBIs, and Keiji Obiki added a pair of hits and two RBIs as Orix topped host Seibu.

Seibu’s Takeya Nakamura blasted a solo shot in the ninth, his Japan-best 27th, to spoil an Orix shutout.

CENTRAL LEAGUE

SWALLOWS 2, GIANTS 0

Sixth-year lefty Kyohei Muranaka (2-0) tossed his first career complete game and shutout, beating Yomiuri for the second time in as many starts to lead front-running Yakult at Fukushima.

Muranaka scattered three hits with a walk, two hit batters and three strikeouts. Norichika Aoki’s first-inning leadoff homer and Kazuhiro Hatakeyama’s RBI single in the first were the only runs of the game.

DRAGONS 6, CARP 3

Naomichi Donoue had two hits and three RBIs and Kazuki Yoshimi (8-2) allowed two runs over seven innings as Chunichi stopped a four-game skid to host Hiroshima and beat Bryan Bullington (9-5) for the first time in four chances.

Second-year man Ryuji Nakata had two hits and drove in his first pro run with a sixth-inning double for the Dragons, while Joel Guzman, batting .176, also had two this and an RBI in the No. 3 hole. Masahiko Morino had three hits as the cleanup man.

BAYSTARS 4, TIGERS 4

Yokohama’s Tatsuya Shimozono hit an RBI single in the sixth to even the score and the 3.5-hour rule closed things down at Jingu Stadium in the ninth for a draw.