Masahiro Tanaka escaped a first-inning jam on Sunday and cruised to his eighth victory as the Rakuten Eagles defeated the Yomiuri Giants 5-3 in interleague action at Tokyo Dome.

The right-hander worked seven scoreless innings to improve to 8-0 in 11 starts this season. Toshiya Nakashima opened the scoring for the Eagles with a solo homer off Giants ace Tetsuya Utsumi (4-3) in the second. Rakuten opened up a big lead in the fourth, when Hiroaki Shimauchi doubled in three runs, and Tanaka doubled him home to make it 5-0 Eagles.

Tanaka allowed three hits and walked two, while striking out four. He got in trouble trying to paint the corners in the first and surrendered back-to-back, one-out singles and then walked Giants captain Shinnosuke Abe to load the bases. With his back to the wall, Tanaka got Jose Lopez to ground into an inning-ending double play.