Baseball / Japanese Baseball

Carp lefty Johnson tosses seven scoreless innings in triumph over Tigers

Kyodo

OSAKA – Kris Johnson hurled seven shutout innings to win his 12th game, tying him for the most in NPB, and Takahiro Arai had three RBIs as the Central-League leading Hiroshima Carp beat the Hanshin Tigers 5-0 on Tuesday.

Johnson (12-6) allowed runners in just two of his innings as he won his third straight start. He allowed two hits and a walk, while striking out seven. Johnson joins teammate Yusuke Nomura with 12 wins alongside Pacific Leaguers Ayumu Ishikawa of the Chiba Lotte Marines and Tsuyoshi Wada of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.

Arai went deep off Hanshin ace Atsushi Nomi’s first pitch in the second, hit a sacrifice fly in the third and singled in another in the fifth at Kyocera Dome.

The three RBIs lifted Arai into a tie for the league lead with Tokyo Yakult Swallows slugger Tetsuto Yamada on 84.

Nomi (7-10) lasted five innings, allowing three runs on five hits and four walks with four strikeouts.

The Carp scored two more runs in the sixth off reliever Cody Satterwhite. Seiya Suzuki singled, stole second and scored on a single by Yoshiyuki Ishihara. Johnson sacrificed his batterymate to second. Ishihara then scored on a single by leadoff man Kosuke Tanaka.

Giants 2, Dragons 0

At Nagoya Dome, Yomiuri’s Shuichi Murata drove in the game’s only runs with a two-run shot in the fourth as Tomoyuki Sugano (7-5) worked six innings and three relievers completed the shutout.

Chunichi ace Kazuki Yoshimi (4-5) threw a four-hitter in the complete-game defeat.

BayStars at Swallows — ppd.PACIFIC LEAGUE

Fighters 3, Buffaloes 2

At Sapporo Dome, Brandon Laird brought Hokkaido Nippon Ham from behind in the eighth inning with a two-out, two-run single off Orix closer Yoshihisa Hirano, who entered after reliever Tomoyuki Kaida (0-1) gave up pinch hitter Kenji Yano’s game-tying RBI single.

Lions 6, Hawks 4

At Fukuoka’s Yafuoku Dome, Fukuoka SoftBank’s lead over Nippon Ham at the top of the PL standings was cut to one game after Seibu rallied from four runsdown in the fourth off Shota Takeda (11-6).

Seibu ace Takayuki Kishi (6-6) allowed four runs over the distance to win his 100th career game.

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