Kosuke Fukudome hit a tiebreaking grand slam in a ninth-inning rally as the Chunichi Dragons scored five runs against Marc Kroon to beat the Yokohama BayStars 9-7 on Friday night.
Tohoku Rakuten's Fumitoshi Takano slides home
safely past Softbank catcher Naoki Matoba during the fourth
inning at Fullcast Stadium.
Kazuyoshi Tatsunami hit a one-out sacrifice fly to make it 5-5 and Fukudome drove a 0-2 forkball from Kroon into the left-field stands at Yokohama Stadium, helping the Dragons move within 2 1/2 games of the league-leading Hanshin Tigers.
Shuichi Murata pulled Yokohama within two runs with a two-run blast off Satoru Ishikawa in the bottom of the ninth, but Hitoki Iwase got the final two outs for his league-high 30th save.