Seibu Lions ace Takayuki Kishi allowed two run in six innings to earn his first win of the season as his teammates bombarded the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in a 12-4 win on Friday.

The Lions pounded out 19 hits, including four home runs, en route to victory that saw them move ahead of the Fighters into second place in the Pacific League. Both clubs are four games back of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks.

Kishi (1-1) had been scheduled to start on Opening Day until he hurt his left oblique muscles late in March and didn’t make his first start until June 4. He gave up five hits and a walk, while striking out five.

“Until now, I had pitched three games without a win, so I wanted to do whatever I had to do to win tonight,” Kishi said. “I should have avoided giving up those runs, but we could win because of the position players. They gave me a lead and gave me some room to work with.”

“Our team is strong, and I want to do my best not to mess it up.”

After Kishi worked a 1-2-3 first, leadoff man Shogo Akiyama tripled to open the home half against rookie Kohei Arihara (3-3) and scored on a sacrifice fly by captain Takumi Kuriyama.

A one-out second-inning double by teenage designated hitter Tomoya Mori and an error set up another sac fly by Yuji Onizaki that made it 2-0.

Takuya Nakashima’s two-out RBI single in the third halved the Lions lead, but Nippon Ham would never get that close again. Akiyama opened the bottom of the third with his seventh home run and Takeya Nakamura’s one-out single made it 4-1. Ernesto Mejia followed with a long blast that sailed onto the concourse beyond the left-field stands at Seibu Prince Dome.

Kishi got two outs in the top of the sixth before giving up a double to Sho Nakata and a flare RBI single off the bat of Shohei Otani.

Hideto Asamura and Mori, however, went deep for Seibu in the sixth, when former amateur icon Yuki Saito surrendered five runs in relief.

Hawks 5, Eagles 1

At Sendai’s Kobo Stadium, Yuki Yanagita and Lee Dae-ho’s RBI singles off Tohoku Rakuten starter Wataru Kawashima (3-2) in the first inning put Fukuoka Softbank in front, and Hawks starter Kenichi Nakata (5-3) didn’t allow a run until the ninth.

CENTRAL LEAGUE

BayStars at Tigers — ppd.

Dragons at Carp — ppd.

Giants at Swallows — ppd.