Bryan Rodriguez allowed one run over five innings, and Haruki Nishikawa put Hokkaido Nippon Ham ahead with a two-run double as the Fighters beat the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks 4-3 in the Pacific League on Sunday.
The win lifted the second-place Fighters to within 2½ games of the Hawks, who had taken the first two games of their series at Sapporo Dome.
Mizuki Hori pitched a 1-2-3 first as the Fighters' first "opener" of the season, before Rodriguez (6-2) took the mound in the second to pitch the bulk of the game. Although the right-hander surrendered a second-inning homer to Nobuhiro Matsuda, he allowed only two more hits and no runs, while striking out three.