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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.
Tigers drop plummeting Swallows
The Yakult Swallows are off course in a big way.
The Hanshin Tigers caused a logjam at second place in the Central League, beating the sliding Swallows 1-0 on Sunday at Koshien Stadium.
The Swallows fell to 7-13-3 this month, and their lead in the standings is 3.5 over the second-place Tigers, Chunichi Dragons and Yomiuri Giants.
Randy Messenger (9-3) scattered four hits over seven innings and fanned a Japan career-best 10, and Kyuji Fujikawa nailed down his 30th save -- the third time he has reached that single-season figure.
Yoshinori Sato (6-6) carried a shutout into the seventh inning but surrendered three straight hits, the last one an RBI single by Keiichi Hirano for the game’s only run. Sato escaped further damage, but the Swallows only mustered four hits and dropped their second straight to Hanshin.
GIANTS 4, CARP 2
Hayato Sakamoto’s two-out triple – Yomiuri’s second late-game tiebreaking triple in as many days -- drove in two as the Giants topped Hiroshima at The Zoom.
The win gave the CL three teams all at a game over .500 and tied for second place.
DRAGONS 3, BAYSTARS 1
Ryosuke Hirata homered for the third time in as many games and Soma Yamauchi (2-1) tossed 6.1 scoreless innings as Chunichi swept host Yokohama in a rain-shortened two-game set.
The .230-hitting Kazuhiro Wada, last year CL MVP, was dropped from the starting lineup for first time since Oct. 7, 2008.
PACIFIC LEAGUE
HAWKS 2, EAGLES 1
Yuichi Honda’s clutch single in the 10th inning helped SoftBank snap a four-game skid to Rakuten, which saw its franchise-tying seven-game winning streak come to an end at The Kleenex Box.
Motohiro Shima opened the eighth with a double but was thrown out on a botched sac bunt and the Eagles failed to score in the bottom of the nine or 10th.
LIONS 1, FIGHTERS 0
Fumiya Nishiguchi (6-6) scattered three hits and fanned 10 with no walks and a hit batter for his first shutout in 2,192 days [Aug. 27, 2005] as Seibu blanked visiting Nippon Ham.
Hiroyuki Nakajima plated Takuya Hara, who opened the sixth with a triple, for the game’s only run. Nishiguchi had double digits in Ks for the first time since June 18, 2006.
BUFFALOES 6, MARINES 4
Naotaka Takehara hit two-run shot in the second and Lee Seung Yeop followed Aarom Baldiris’ second homer in as many days -- a solo blast in the fourth -- with a three-run shot in the sixth as Orix powered past Lotte at Kyocera Dome Osaka.