Tsuyoshi Wada was awfully good, but not enough to overcome Tomoya Mori, Hiroya Miyagi and the Buffaloes. Masahiro Tanaka was outpitched by up-and-coming Seibu lefty Chihiro Sumida, Hiroki Tokoda had one of his better games, and the Marines found themselves firing blanks for the second straight night.
Thursday’s games
Buffaloes 2, Hawks 1: At Osaka UFO Dome, Tsuyoshi Wada (6-5) allowed a run on four hits over six innings without a walk, while Hiroya Miyagi (8-4), pitched out of trouble after walking three and hitting one over six innings.
Kenta Imamiya doubled and scored in the first on a single by Yuki Yanagita, who was thrown out on the bases, while Tomoya Noguchi singled to open the Buffaloes’ first and scored on a Tomoya Mori sacrifice fly.
The Hawks left three on in the top of the fourth, and Mori snapped the tie with his 13th home run, leading off the bottom of the inning. Three Buffaloes relievers followed Miyagi with Yoshihisa Hirano getting his 20th save.
Carp 6, Tigers 0: At New Hiroshima Citizens Stadium, Hiroki Tokoda (10-3) allowed five hits and walked three in his second shutout of the season.
Ryosuke Kikuchi and Takashi Uemoto both singled and scored to give Hiroshima a 2-0 third-inning lead. Tokoda double in a run in the Carp’s three-run third, with two of the runs unearned against Tigers starter Jeremy Beasley (1-2).
Giants 2, Dragons 1: At Nagoya Dome, Tomoyuki Sugano () scattered six hits, a walk and a hit batsman over 6-1/3 innings as Chunichi stranded 10 runners, including Yuki Okabayashi, who extended his franchise-record hit streak to 29 games.
Dragons lefty Takahiro Matsuba (1-3) didn’t allow a hit until Seiya Hosokawa failed to make a sliding catch on Hayato Sakamoto‘s one-out fly that kicked out of his glove for a double. Three straight singles and two runs followed.
Deniers 5, Swallows 3: At Jingu Stadium, Haruhiro Hamaguchi (2-5) allowed two runs over six innings. New Swallow Elvin Rodriguez (1-1) dropped a catch while covering first and followed that by surrendering a three-run homer to Shugo Maki, his 22nd. Munetaka Murakami hit his 24th with a man on in the fourth to make it a 3-2 game. Keita Sano‘s two-run homer made it 5-2 in the seventh. DeNA’s Kohei Morihara retired Murakami for the first time, allowing just a Domingo Santana solo homer en route to his sixth save.
Fighters 5 Marines x: At Kitahiroshima Taxpayer’s Burden Field, James Marvel (2-1) worked 4-1/3 innings of relief to earn the win as three pitchers combined on Nippon Ham’s second straight shutout to complete a three-game series sweep of Lotte.
Wang Po-jung led off the second with his first homer, and Ariel Martinez singled in Taiki Narama. Chusei Mannami‘s 19th home run made it 3-0 in the fourth. The Fighters scored twice in the sixth on a pair of two-out singles, a stolen base and two throwing errors on the same play.
Lions 4, Eagles 2: At Seibu Half Dome, Seibu lefty Chihiro Sumida (7-7) came within an inch of escaping a first-inning bases-loaded pickle when Hiroaki Shimauchi chased a 2-2 low-and-away fastball but got the end of the bat on the ball and sliced it to left for a two-run double. Sumida escaped further trouble with an artful strikeout of Maikel Franco as he began to get a feel for his stuff, particularly his curve and change.
Masahiro Tanaka (6-8), who surrendered six-plus runs in two of his previous three starts, opened his night with a three-pitch strikeout, and needed just eight in a 1-2-3 first. Tanaka retired seven straight on 24 pitches before catcher Yuto Koga lined a hanging splitter for a one-out third-inning single.
Tanaka walked Mark Payton and Shuta Tonosaki in the fourth, and Seibu tied it on David MacKinnon‘s sac fly and a double from Kento Watanabe, in his first game back since being hurt July 1. Shinya Hasegawa doubled in the fifth off a big lazy Tanaka slider and a Sosuke Genda sac fly brought him home. A two-out infield single and another hanging slider made it 4-2 on a Takeya Nakamura double.
