KYODO NEWS - Aug 2, 2017 - 22:55 | Sports, All

Rick van den Hurk struck out 13 over eight innings and Yuki Yanagita hit a two-run home run to help the SoftBank Hawks defeat the Orix Buffaloes 5-1 and lift their team to the top spot in the Pacific League on Wednesday.

The Hawks took the lead in the league for the first time since July 8, replacing the Rakuten Eagles who lost their game.

SoftBank scored first on a Yanagita sacrifice fly in the first inning, but Orix's Hiroyuki Nakajima got even in the bottom frame with a sacrifice fly of his own at Kyocera Dome Osaka.

Nobuhiro Matsuda put the Hawks ahead with a solo homer in the fourth and Hiroaki Takaya added another run for the visitors with a sacrifice fly in the fifth before Yanagita shot into the right stands in the eighth with Kenta Imamiya on first.

Yanagita now leads the PL in batting average (.331), home runs (25) and RBIs (80).

Van den Hurk (9-5) gave up one run on five hits and a walk in his 119-pitch outing, while Livan Moinelo retired the side in the ninth.

"We lost a long game yesterday, so we wanted to win today no matter what and I'm very pleased that I was able to hit a home run," Matsuda said, referring to Tuesday's 12-inning walk-off loss to Orix.

"I'm glad we were able to take the league lead. The whole team will try to win one game at a time in the remainder of this season so that we will be able to keep the lead," he said.

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Lions 7, Eagles 4

At MetLife Dome, Hotaka Yamakawa blasted three homers worth four runs to power Seibu to win its 11th consecutive game for the first time in 23 years by beating Rakuten and pushing it down to second place in the PL.

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Marines 4, Fighters 2

At Zozo Marine Stadium, Wily Mo Pena cracked two solo shots and starter Jason Standridge (3-4) held Nippon Ham to one run on seven hits and four walks over 6-1/3 innings to stop Lotte's losing skid at four.

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Central League

Giants 10, Swallows 4

At Jingu Stadium, Shuichi Murata and Shinnosuke Abe had three hits each and drove in a combined seven runs to pace Yomiuri past Yakult. Rookie Seishu Hatake (2-1) allowed three runs on seven hits and struck out seven in six innings as the Giants won their fifth straight game.

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Tigers 4, Carp 3

At Mazda Stadium, Jason Rogers drove home two runs with a bases-loaded single in the top of the ninth to lift Hanshin over CL-leading Hiroshima and Tigers closer Rafael Dolis got the last three outs to pick up a league-high 26th save.

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Dragons 4, BayStars 4, 12 innings

At Yokohama Stadium, Issei Endo hit an RBI single and Chunichi scored another run on a throwing error in the ninth to draw 4-4 with DeNA and force the game into extra innings. After that, neither team could score through 12 innings.