Back in flight …

Swallows ground Hawks, end worst skid in 39 years

The Yakult Swallows had been trapped in their own little interleague cage for 10 games, reeling in the team’s longest skid in 39 years.

But Kazuhiro Hatakeyama, Lastings Milledge and righty Orlando Roman help end a pair of embarrassing streaks as the Swallows beat up the Nippon Ham Fighters 10-5 at Jingu Stadium on Thursday night.

Hatakeyama homered, doubled and drove in two, Milledge slugged a grand slam, and Roman (3-5) worked 5.2 effective innings and doubled home a run to put an emphatic end to the skid.

Yakult beat up on Fighters starter Yuki Saito (4-4), who lost his fourth straight decision. The Swallows racked up eight hits off Saito in four innings, while striking out just once.

The Swallows had allowed the game’s first run over nine straight games, while scoring one or fewer runs over a club-worst-tying eight games.

GIANTS 4, EAGLES 2

Yoshinobu Takahashi homered for the second straight night to back Tetsuya Utsumi (5-4), who threw six innings as Yomiuri downed Rakuten at Tokyo Dome.

CARP 5, LIONS 3

Rookie Yusuke Nomura (4-3) fanned a career-best nine over eight innings, and Nick Stavinoha had two hits and two RBIs as Hiroshima topped Seibu at The Zoom.

TIGERS 2, MARINES 1

Craig Brazell snuck a groundball through a drawn-in infield in the ninth inning, and Matt Murton had two hits as Hanshin knocked off Lotte at Koshien Stadium.

BUFFALOES 4, DRAGONS 4

Masahiro Araki drove home the game-tying run with a two-out single in the sixth, and Kazuhiro Wada hit his 34th interleague homer as Chunichi played to a time-limit draw against Orix, the ninth tie already this season for the Dragons.

BAYSTARS 2, HAWKS 2

Yuichi Honda and Seiichi Uchikawa hit back-to-back homers, and Yokohama’s Brandon Mann worked seven innings as visiting SoftBank and DeNA played to a tie.

The Hawks’ Wily Mo Pena had a hit in the fourth inning to snap his slump at 36 consecutive plate appearances.

*Interleague
PL 33, CL 31, 7 TIES