Submarine right-hander Hayate Nakagawa, now free to bat in the Central League after being discarded by Orix over the winter, showed off the power he hadn’t utilized since high school. Meanwhile, Hiroshima survived a late scare, Takashi Ogino had a game in Chiba, and Yakult did something it’s done a lot of this year.

Saturday’s games:

BayStars 3, Dragons 2: At Yokohama Stadium, Hayate Nakagawa (2-0) allowed two runs over six innings and hit a two-run homer as DeNA consigned last-place Chunichi to its fourth straight loss.

Toshiro Miyazaki doubled to lead off the second against Takahiro Matsuba, and scored on a sac fly by catcher Yudai Yamamoto. Former Dragon Yota Kyoda singled, and Nakagawa, who hit 26 home runs as the ace pitcher and cleanup hitter for Yokohama’s Toko Gakuin High School drove in the first two runs of his pro career.

The Dragons got on the board in the fifth on a Yuki Okabayashi RBI single and a Hironori Miyoshi sacrifice fly off Nakagawa, but Hiromu Ise, Yasuaki Yamasaki and Kohei Morihara combined to allow just two runners over the final three innings with Morihara getting his 10th save.