Looking pretty Buff …

Orix tops Nippon Ham for 7th straight win

Masataka Goto is red hot and Orix are looking pretty Buff as the club won its seventh straight on Sunday, downing the Nippon Ham Fighters 5-3 at Kyocera Dome Osaka.

Goto extended his hitting streak to 17 games and Evan MacLane (3-2) worked six strong innings as the Buffaloes completed a sweep of Nippon Ham and its second winning streak this season of seven games.

Goto singled to drive in a run in in a three-run second, and ripped his seventh longball of the year in the fifth after the Fighters had crawled to within a run. Aarom Baldiris cracked his 12th, a solo blast, in the eight to pad the lead for Mamoru Kishida, who worked a 1-2-3 ninth
for his 26th save.

MacLane fanned seven, after getting his changeup going, while yielding seven hits and walking none.

“We gave up some needless runs in the game, but we didn’t walk anyone and that kept us out of big innings,” said Orix skipper Akinobu Okada.

The Buffaloes are deadlocked with Rakuten for third place in the Pacific League.

LIONS 12, HAWKS 2

Tatsuyuki Uemoto slugged his first career grand slam and drove in six, Takeya Nakamura went deep for the fourth straight day, his Japan-best 37th, and Fumiya Nishiguchi (7-6) held SoftBank to two runs over seven innings as Seibu won at home.

Uemoto had a two-run double when the Lions put up a six-spot in the fourth to take the lead, and the sixth-year backup catcher put the game away with his slam capping a five-run seventh. It was his first homer since Aug. 29 last year.

EAGLES 6, MARINES 3

Masato Nakamura’s two-run triple -- one of his three hits -- capped a three-run fifth, and Shinichiro Koyama (6-2) worked two innings of perfect relief as Rakuten topped Lotte at The Q.

Darrell Rasner finished off five scoreless innings by the bullpen with a 1-2-3 ninth for his 12th save.

CENTRAL LEAGUE

GIANTS 4, SWALLOWS 1

Alex Ramirez had an RBI single in the fourth and connected for his 15 th longball, a two-run shot, in the seventh as Yomiuri avoided a sweep to Yakult at Koshien Stadium.

The Giants, who have two more wins than the Swallows, moved to within three games back of Yakult.

CARP 4, DRAGONS 0

Kenta Maeda (8-8) scattered five hits and two walks over seven innings and two relievers closed it out as Hiroshima sent Chunichi to its CL-high 19th shutout loss in a win at The Zoom.

Kenta Kurihara hit his 15th longball, a two-run shot in the fifth that gave Hiroshima a 3-0 lead.

BAYSTARS 2, TIGERS 0

Shuichi Murata had a pair of RBI singles and Daisuke Miura (3-3) pitched through a rain delay as Yokohama topped Hanshin in a game called in the eighth because of rain.