Fish fry ...

Dragons blank Carp for 2nd consecutive game

More and more, these fish are starting to look fried.

Soma Yamauchi tossed eight scoreless innings and padded his slim lead with an RBI groundout as the Chunichi Dragons blanked the Hiroshima Carp for the second straight day, winning 2-0 on Sunday afternoon at The Zoom.

The victory booked the Dragons a spot in the Central League Climax Series for the two-time reigning league champs. But it put a dent in the floundering Carp's playoff push, dropping them three games behind third-place Yakult, which won in a night game.

Poor defense plagued the Carp again as second baseman Akihiro Higashide just plain whiffed on a grounder to his right that allowed the first run to score in the fourth inning. That brought home Yohei Oshima, who had reached on an error by Brad Eldred.

Hiroshima, which starts a three-game showdown with Yakult on Monday, is a combined 12-29 against the CL’s top two teams and 8-8 vs. Yakult.

Bryan Bullington (6-14) put in a quality start with eight strong innings [two runs, one earned, on five hits and two walks with six Ks] but came away with his league-worst 14th loss. It was the 15th unearned run charged to Bullington this season.

GIANTS 4, TIGERS 2

Shinnosuke Abe doubled twice and ripped his 24th homer [his 168th at Tokyo Dome, second on the all-time list] to lead host Yomiuri past Hanshin.

It marked the 29th consecutive time the Giants have won at the dome when Abe has homered.

SWALLOWS 2, BAYSTARS 1

Yuhei Takai broke a 1-1 tie with a clutch RBI single in the seventh as Yakult edged Yokohama to move three games ahead of Hiroshima in the race for third place.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

HAWKS 5, FIGHTERS 2

Wily Mo Pena had two hits, including an RBI double, and Yuya Hasegawa homered to help SoftBank avoid a sweep to Nippon Ham at Sapporo Dome.

Shota Takeda (6-1) went five innings and four hurlers closed it out with scoreless relief the rest of the way.

MARINES 5, LIONS 2

Ikuhiro Kiyota doubled in a run in the first inning, and Shunichi Nemoto and Tomoya Satozaki each added RBI singles in the second to lead Lotte past Seibu to win their series at The Q.

EAGLES 3, BUFFALOES 1

Luis Garcia hit a solo shot in the seventh and singled with the bases loaded in the eighth to drive in all three runs as Rakuten downed host Orix for its fourth consecutive victory.