TOKOROZAWA, Saitama Pref. – Atsunori Inaba hit a grand slam in the fifth inning to make a winner of Yu Darvish as the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters rallied to beat the Seibu Lions 8-5 on Saturday.
Inaba connected off Hsu Ming-chieh (1-2) with the bases loaded and two outs to give Nippon Ham a 6-5 lead at Seibu Dome. The struggling Fighters snapped a four-game losing streak.
“I’m glad I came through in that bases-loaded situation,” said Inaba, who recently missed five games because of a sore back. “My back is fine now. The team is losing, but we all know what we have to do for the team. We are still nine games below .500. We’ll just take one game at a time in our comeback attempt.”
Marines 9, Buffaloes 0
At Chiba Marine Stadium, Yoshihisa Naruse threw a six-hit shutout and Saburo Omura went 3-for-4 with a homer and four RBIs as Chiba Lotte trounced Orix to extend its winning streak to five games.
Eagles 8, Hawks 3
At Yahoo Dome, Yosuke Takasu drove in four runs, Hisashi Iwakuma pitched a complete game and Tohoku Rakuten beat Softbank to end a four-game slide.
Takasu hit a tying two-run single in the third inning and doubled in two runs to cap a five-run fourth. Iwakuma (2-2) allowed eight hits, struck out nine and walked none.
CENTRAL LEAGUE
Giants 6, Swallows 1
At Matsuyama Stadium, Yoshiyuki Kamei hit a tiebreaking single in a four-run seventh inning as Yomiuri downed Yakult.
Tied 1-1 with runners at the corners, Kamei singled to center for the lead. Another run was added on Yoshinori Sato’s (1-2) wild pitch and Tetsuya Matsumoto added a two-run single the same inning.
BayStars 7, Tigers 3
At Yokohama Stadium, Terrmel Sledge hit a pair of solo homers and Naoyuki Shimizu pitched one-run ball over seven innings as Yokohama beat Hanshin.
Sledge went deep in the second and eighth and Yuki Yoshimura had an RBI single among his three hits.
Carp 8, Dragons 7
At Mazda Stadium, Jun Hirose singled home the game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning as Hiroshima had its second straight walk-off win over Chunichi.
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