Rick van den Hurk was tagged with his first loss in Nippon Professional Baseball on Tuesday after the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters defeated the Pacific League-leading Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks 7-2 to end his record 14-straight winning decisions to start his NPB career.
Dutch right-hander van den Hurk (5-1), who went 9-0 last year, set the NPB record last Tuesday against the Chiba Lotte Marines but was stung for seven runs on six hits, two walks and one hit batsman over five innings on the day as he struck out four in a 91-pitch outing.
Nippon Ham starter Kohei Arihara (5-0) went the distance as he kept his strong start going, giving up two runs on five hits and two walks while striking out four in his 135 pitches at Kitakyushu Stadium.