Central figures …
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Some rights reserved.
Dragons top Swallows, take 2.5-game CL lead
The Chunichi Dragons are looking more like the central figures of this title race.
Suddenly hot-hitting Tony Blanco belted a two-run line-drive homer in the first inning, and soft-tossing lefty Yudai Kawai worked 7.1 scoreless innings as the Dragons seized control of the Central League with a 3-1 win over the Yakult Swallows on Tuesday.
The Dragons have taken the first two of a four-game showdown at Nagoya Dome.
The defending league champs moved 2.5 games ahead of Yakult and locked up a Climax Series playoff spot. Kawai (5-3) handcuffed the Swallows on three hits, with a walk and two Ks.
Blanco took Shohei Tateyama (10-5) out the opposite way with Masahiro Araki on and two down in the first with his 14th homer.
Blanco has 21 hits, seven of them for extra bases, in his last 21 games.
GIANTS 4, TIGERS 3
Daisuke Fujimura singled in the ninth for a walk-off win, and Shinnosuke Abe homered in the second and tied the score with a sixth-inning single as Yomiuri shot down Hanshin’s hopes for a CL title.
Hanshin’s Matt Murton singled in his first at-bat to extend his hitting streak to 30 games. Murton passed Glenn Braggs for the longest streak by an import, and is three away from former Hiroshima Carp star Yoshihiko Takahashi.
CARP 7, BAYSTARS 0
Kenta Maeda (10-11) fired a two-hitter, fanning a career-best 13 to tie league-leader Atsushi Nomi of Hanshin with 173, as Hiroshima blanked Yokohama at The Zoom.
Masato Akamatsu had three hits and three RBIs to back Maeda, who was perfect through five innings and didn’t allow a hit until Yoshitomo Tsutsugo doubled in the seventh.
PACIFIC LEAGUE
FIGHTERS 3, LIONS 0
Yu Darvish (18-6) fanned a career-best 15 to raise his single-season-best total to 276 in a three-hitter than helped Nippon Ham past visiting Seibu and lock up a playoff spot.
Darvish walked one while moving into a three-way tie for the PL lead in wins as the Fighters posted their franchise-best 24th shutout.
Seibu lefty Kazuhisa Ishii took the mound in relief for the first time in four years as the Lions fell 1.5 games back of third-place Orix, which was idle.