Kimiyasu Kudo and the Yokohama BayStars did everything they could in the first five innings to build a big lead against the Yomiuri Giants Tuesday night at Tokyo Dome. Though in the last three, it took everything they had just to hold on.
Shuichi Murata hit a fifth-inning grand slam to put Yokohama up 5-0 and the BayStars survived a furious rally to beat the Yomiuri Giants 8-4 in front of 40,280 fans at the Big Egg.
Giants first baseman Lee Seung Yeop homered in consecutive at-bats to lead a comeback in the late innings, and Shinnosuke Abe added a solo blast in the eighth, cutting the Yokohama lead to 5-4