Yu Darvish struck out 10 in his eighth complete game of the season and Kensuke Tanaka drove in two runs, leading the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters to a 3-1 win over the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles on Thursday.
Darvish (11-3) won his fifth straight start after holding Rakuten to four hits without a walk in an 89-pitch outing at Tokyo Dome. The right-hander retired the final 11 batters in order, seven of them on strikeouts.
Tanaka hit an RBI single in the first inning and a tiebreaking double in a two-run fifth off Domingo Guzman (2-5).
Rick Short had a run-scoring infield single for Rakuten in the fourth.
Buffaloes 6, Marines 5
CENTRAL LEAGUE
Swallows 3, Tigers 0
At Koshien Stadium, Tokyo Yakult took advantage of Tomoyuki Kubota's wildness to score three runs in the top of the ninth inning and Masanori Ishikawa combined with Lim Chang Yong on a five-hit shutout of Hanshin.
Kubota (5-2) walked three to load the bases with one out in the ninth and allowed Kazuki Fukuchi to score when he threw a pitch in the dirt that bounced off catcher Akihiro Yano.
The reliever then made an errant throw home after fielding a comebacker from Hiroyasu Tanaka, allowing two more to score. Ishikawa (8-6) scattered four hits over eight innings. Lim earned his 22nd save.
BayStars 9, Carp 8
