HIROSHIMA – Kenjiro Nomura delivered his 2,000th career hit and the Hiroshima Carp celebrated the feat with a 5-2 victory over the Yakult Swallows in the Central League on Thursday.
Kenjiro Nomura of the Hiroshima Carp reaches the 2,000-hit plateau with a fourth-inning singleat Hiroshima Stadium on Thursday. The Carp beat the Swallows 5-2.
Hiroshima tied the game at 1-1 in the second inning with a Greg LaRocca solo homer and took the lead for good in the third on an RBI single by Shigenobu Shima and LaRocca’s run-scoring grounder.
Takahiro Arai led off the fourth with a homer that made it 4-1 and Nomura followed with his memorable hit — a single to left off Yakult right-hander Ryo Kawashima (5-5) in front of a home crowd of 17,376 at Hiroshima Stadium.
Nomura became the 33rd player in Japanese baseball history to reach the 2,000-hit mark, following in the footsteps of former Hiroshima stars Sachio Kinugasa and Koji Yamamoto.
The 38-year-old infielder has spent his entire career with the Carp since joining the club from Komazawa University in 1989 as a first-round draft pick. He has led the CL in stolen bases three times and won the Golden Glove award once.
Nomura later scored on a Koichi Ogata single for the Carp’s fifth run and Kan Otake (5-5) held the Swallows to one run and four hits in a 10-strikeout effort over eight strong innings.
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Dragons 9, Tigers 3
At Osaka Dome, Masahiro Araki drove in the go-ahead run with a two-run single in a six-run sixth-inning rally as Chunichi beat league-leading Hanshin to climb back into second place.
PACIFIC LEAGUE
Buffaloes 6, Lions 5
At Invoice Seibu Dome, Karim Garcia and pinch-hitter Eiji Mizuguchi hit back-to-back RBI singles as Orix turned the game around with a two-run seventh-inning rally to beat the Lions.
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