Kazuhiro Wada and Masaaki Koike both homered, Junki Ito pitched a shutout into the eighth inning and the Chunichi Dragons took the rubber in a three-game set against the Yomiuri Giants with a 6-2 victory on Sunday afternoon.
Yomiuri rookie starter Hirokazu Sawamura was shaky right out of the gate, his control issues getting the better of him and unsettling a mostly partisan crowd of 40,323 at Tokyo Dome.
The hard-throwing right-hander got a quick first out to start the game, only to proceed to walk Tatsuro Iwasaki and hit Masahiko Morino with a pitch, setting the stage for Wada to put the Dragons on the board in the early going.