Miles Mikolas held Yakult to a run in six innings to help the Yomiuri Giants beat the Swallows 5-3 on Tuesday and leapfrog them into first place in the Central League.

Mikolas (8-3) allowed four hits, struck out five and walked one in his 102-pitch outing, backed up by RBIs from Soichiro Tateoka and Shuichi Murata off his counterpart Shohei Tateyama (2-1) in the third and fourth, respectively.

Mikolas allowed Kazuhiro Hatakeyama to pull one back for the Swallows in the sixth, but Daiki Yoshikawa restored the two-run cushion in the seventh with a single before a bases-loaded, two-out double from Yasuyuki Kataoka put the Giants in control at Azuma Stadium.