Lefty Masanori Ishikawa held the Hiroshima Carp to five hits over the distance on Wednesday night as the Tokyo Yakult Swallows beat the Central League leaders 6-0.
Ishikawa (1-3) had enough command of his various pitches to keep Carp batters from making too much solid contact. The veteran, who has made a career out of getting ground outs, worked effectively up in the zone in the early innings and got an uncharacteristic number of easy fly outs. But when needed, Ishikawa was able to go back to basics and get big ground outs.
"Ishikawa wanted to vary things a bit tonight," Yakult catcher Yuhei Nakamura said. "It wasn't so much a plan to get fly outs but just to mix things up and put hitters off balance."