Chiba Lotte Marines ace Roki Sasaki struck out 14 batters over seven masterful innings of three-hit, one-run baseball to spur his team to a 5-3 win over the Pacific League-leading Orix Buffaloes on Wednesday.
The 21-year-old right-hander did not issue a walk over 104 pitches and was backed by three RBIs from Katsuya Kakunaka in a 2-for-3 night at Kyocera Dome Osaka.
Touching 165 kph with his fastball, Sasaki (7-2) surrendered his only run in the first inning on Leandro Cedeno's double and retired his last 10 batters in a row.
"Our team scoring five runs allowed me to throw at my own pace," Sasaki said. "It really helped."
Kakunaka put the Marines up 2-1 in the second with a two-run homer deep to right off Jharel Cotton (1-1) and made it 5-1 with his RBI single against Jacob Waguespack that capped a three-run third inning.
"They had a head start in the first inning, but I was glad to quickly get us in front," the 36-year-old Kakunaka said.
The PL champion Buffaloes rallied for two runs and brought the go-ahead run to the plate with two outs in the eighth before Luis Perdomo coaxed a groundout from Yuma Tongu to end the inning.
Closer Naoya Masuda earned his 22nd save after allowing one hit in a scoreless ninth inning as the Marines moved to within 1½ games of the Buffaloes.
Elsewhere in the PL, the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles topped the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters 4-3 and the Seibu Lions defeated the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks 4-2.
In the Central League, the first-place Hanshin Tigers beat the DeNA BayStars 5-4, the Hiroshima Carp were 2-0 winners over the Yomiuri Giants, and the Yakult Swallows overpowered the Chunichi Dragons 8-5 following two home runs from star slugger Munetaka Murakami.