Norihiro Nakamura homered twice and had three RBIs and Tuffy Rhodes belted his league-leading 13th home run of the season as the Kintetsu Buffaloes downed the Daiei Hawks 7-3 and moved into first place in the Pacific League on Monday.

Up 2-0 in the third, Nakamura slammed a two-run blast off rookie Nagisa Arakaki (2-5) followed by Rhodes career 250th homer in the fifth to stretch the lead 5-1. Arakaki allowed five runs on six hits in a career-worst four innings in taking the loss. Nakamura hit his eighth shot in the seventh.

Shinichi Kato (2-0) surrendered two runs in five innings while walking two and hitting a batter but got his second win in four games. Daiei stranded 10 runners and fell into third in the PL standings, despite serving up 13 hits compared with 10 for the visitors.

Lions 8, BlueWave 0