Yoshio Itoi broke open a scoreless game with a solo homer in a three-run fourth-inning and the Orix Buffaloes held on to beat the Seibu Lions 3-2 for their sixth straight win on Sunday.
Before 30,997 at Kyocera Dome, the Pacific League-leading Buffaloes were kept under wraps by Lions right-hander Greg Reynolds for 3-1/3 innings before Itoi blasted his second homer of the year. After a walk to Wily Mo Pena, the Buffaloes added more runs on Tomotaka Sakaguchi's two-out triple and a single by former big leaguer Yuniesky Betancourt. It was Betancourt's first RBI in Japan.
"That (Betancourt's hit) was huge," manager Hiroshi Moriwaki said. "It was so important that we got our offense restarted after the home run."