Forty-one-year-old Tsuyoshi Wada allowed a run over five innings as three teammates homered in the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks' 5-1 Pacific League win over the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters on Sunday.
The win at PayPay Dome completed a three-game sweep for the Hawks, who began the day a half-game back of the first-place Saitama Seibu Lions.
Wada (4-4) allowed three hits and two walks, while striking out two.
"My pitching was neither really good nor all that bad, but I got a lot of run support and I was determined somehow to get through five innings," Wada said.
Alfredo Despaigne cracked his seventh home run in the second inning off Takayuki Kato (5-5) to put SoftBank up 1-0 with Isami Nomura's two-run homer in the third making it 3-0.
Yuki Yanagita went deep in the sixth for his 16th homer, and Nomura's 10th home run of the year made it 5-1 in the eighth as five relievers handcuffed Nippon Ham over the final four innings.
In the Central League, rookie Ryuku Tsuchida singled in the tie-breaking run in the seventh inning and the Chunichi Dragons went on to beat the CL-leading Yakult Swallows 5-2.
Meanwhile, Hiroto Saiki (3-1) allowed a run over 6⅓ innings to pitch the Hanshin Tigers to a 6-1 win over the Yomiuri Giants and a sweep of their three-game series.