With home runs by Ryuhei Matsuyama and Seiya Suzuki, the Hiroshima Carp defeated the Yokohama BayStars 4-0 on Thursday to move closer to a third straight Central League pennant.
Their magic number — their number of wins, losses by the trailing team, or combination of the two, needed to clinch the pennant — shrank to six with the victory at Mazda Stadium.
With less than a month left in the regular season, the Carp, with 74 wins, have an 11-1/2 game lead over the second-place Tokyo Yakult Swallows.