Makoto Kito (7-6) combined with five pitchers on a four-hitter as the Hanshin Tigers suffered a three-game series sweep for the first time this season and lost their fourth in a row when they were defeated by the Chunichi Dragons 7-3 in the Central League on Thursday.
Tomoaki Kanemoto tied the game 1-all in the opening inning with his first of two solo shots after Kosuke Fukudome put the Dragons on the board with a solo homer off Hideki Irabu in the top half.
Giants 7, BayStars 4
At Tokyo Dome, 19-year-old Masanori Hayashi (2-1) once again failed in his bid to become the fifth teenage player in club history to pitch a complete game, but struck out 11 over eight innings to match a career high in Yomiuri's victory over Yokohama.
Swallows 4, Carp 0
At Hiroshima Stadium, Akinori Iwamura, Alex Ramirez and Ken Suzuki each homered off Masayuki Hasegawa (1-7) in Yakult's triumph over Hiroshima.
Tohoku reaches semis
NISHINOMIYA, Hyogo Pref. (Kyodo) Takayuki Yokota hit a sacrifice fly for the go-ahead run in the eighth inning Thursday as Tohoku of Miyagi Prefecture posted a 2-1 victory over Aomori's Kosei Gakuin to reach the semifinals of the national high school baseball tournament for the first time in 44 years.
In another quarterfinal match, Yutaka Kinoshita held batters to six hits over the distance and helped his own cause with a game-winning RBI single with two out in the ninth, giving Shimane's Gonokawa a 2-1 win over Saitama's Seibo Gakuen.
In the day's third game, Kiryu Daiichi of Gunma Prefecture scored twice in the opening frame on clutch hitting by Yuki Kume, Takeru Bizenjima and Shohei Mori on its way to a 5-4 triumph over Yamaguchi's Iwakuni.