Swallowed up …

Balentien homers twice as Yakult tops Yomiuri

The Giants had been eating up the competition recently, moving from the bottom of the pack up with the leaders of the Central League, but Wladimir Balentien feasted on Yomiuri pitching at Nagano Olympic Stadium on Friday night

Balentien slugged a pair of homers and had four RBIs as the Yakult Swallows topped the Giants 5-2. It was his seventh multi-homer game in one-plus seasons in Japan, and he was clutch, coming up with two of the three two-out run-producing hits for the Swallows.

“He has been hitting homers but nothing else recently,” skipper Junji Ogawa said about Balentien, who is batting .250. “We can’t come to expect that all the time. It’s good for him and it helps the team because we score runs, but down the line we’ll need him to have better at-bats.”

Balentien took Yomiuri starter Testuya Utsumi (6-5) deep in the fourth and added a three-run shot in the seventh to give Yakult a 5-0 lead. Yoshinobu Takahashi and Yoshitomo Tani each drove in runs in the bottom of the seventh, but that was all for the Giants.

Katsuki Akagawa (5-4) gave up a pair of runs on five hits and a walk, while fanning five over seven innings to win it. The lefty carried a shutout into the seventh before allowing two RBI groundouts.

Tony Barnette yielded a walk and a hit in the ninth before getting Hisayoshi Chono to fly out to notch his 17th save as the Swallows improved to 6-2 against the Giants, who fell to 1.5 games out of first in the CL.

Yakult’s Hiroyasu Tanaka became the 14th player to record 250 sacrifice hits when he bunted a runner over in the first inning.

BAYSTARS 2, TIGERS 1

Yoshitomo Tsutsugo’s two-out triple in the sixth put Yokohama up at Koshien Stadium, and Kentaro Takasaki (3-5) and four relievers surrendered just three hits in a win over Hanshin.

Closer Shun Yamaguchi worked a perfect ninth for his 10th save, becoming the first reliever since Kazuhiro Sasaki to record double digits in saves over at least four consecutive seasons.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

EAGLES 3, MARINES 2

Masahiro Tanaka (4-2) picked up his 14th career complete-game victory, allowing just a pair of solo homers [and eight other hits], while walking none and fanning 10 as Rakuten edged visiting Lotte.

Kazuo Matsui homered in the first and Ryo Hijirisawa singled home a run in the third. Yosuke Takasu’s sac fly in the fifth proved to be the difference for the Eagles, who remained in a third-place tie in the Pacific League.

HAWKS 2, FIGHTERS 1

The first of Seiichi Uchikawa’s two hits was a first-inning RBI single, and Wily Mo Pena followed by doubling in what proved to be the winning run in the as SoftBank squeezed past Nippon Ham at FYJ Dome.

Hiroki Yamada (6-6) worked six shutout innings and wriggled out of a jam in the seventh to move into a tie for the team lead in wins.

LIONS 3, BUFFLAOES 3. 10 INNINGS

HIdekaki Wakui’s first outing with the top club in a month was a scoreless ninth, and Seibu failed to score after a three-run second, settling for a tie with visiting Orix at Omiya.