KYODO NEWS - Jun 6, 2017 - 22:39 | Sports, All

Japan's most famous baseball team, the Yomiuri Giants, lost their 11th straight game, matching a franchise record, in an 8-5 interleague defeat to the Seibu Lions on Tuesday.

The oldest active franchise in Nippon Professional Baseball, the Giants equaled the frustrating mark set in 1975, then-manager Shigeo Nagashima's first season in the dugout.

Before a crowd of 24,533 at MetLife Dome just outside Tokyo, the Central League's Giants blew a three-run lead against the Pacific League's Lions.

The Giants' best pitcher, Tomoyuki Sugano, allowed five runs on nine hits and three walks over six innings. With two outs and one on in the fourth, Sugano surrendered four straight singles.

In Sugano's second time through the Seibu order, the Lions forced his pitch count up and his control slackened. He missed high to Ernesto Mejia and Shuta Tonosaki and their back-to-back RBI singles trimmed the Giants' lead to 3-2.

The Giants loaded the bases in the sixth with no outs against Seibu starter Ryoma Nogami, and before he could pitch out of it, Luis Cruz's one-out sac fly brought home one, and a Seiji Kobayashi single made it 5-2.

But Sugano couldn't hold that lead in the bottom of the inning. He missed low and in with a slider on his seventh pitch to Takumi Kuriyama, who pulled it out to left for a solo homer. Five pitches later Mejia drove a mistake off the top of the screen in left center for a double, and Tonosaki followed with a seven-pitch walk.

With one out, Ginjiro Sumitani singled in an eight-pitch at-bat, putting a good swing on a high fastball to make it a one-run game. Tonosaki then scored on a groundout to tie it 5-5.

Submariner Kazuhisa Makita (1-0) overcame three singles in the seventh, keeping the Giants off the board when Mejia gunned down a runner at the plate to end the inning.

Giants right-hander Toshiki Sakurai (0-1) faced four batters and walked three of them. Former closer Kentaro Nishimura took over and surrendered the lead, walking Mejia to force in the go-ahead run before Tonosaki delivered a sacrifice fly.

Lions captain Hideto Asamura iced the game with an eighth-inning homer.

The Giants opened the scoring in the third on a two-run single by Yang Dai-kang. Yang had been hurt in the offseason and was playing his first game since joining Yomiuri as a free agent. Although Nogami lacks Sugano's stuff, the Giants were unable to take advantage as well as they might.

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BayStars 9, Eagles 1

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Dragons 3, Marines 0

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Carp 4, Fighters 3

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Tigers 11, Buffaloes 4

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Hawks 2, Swallows 1, 10 innings

At Yafuoku Dome, former Arizona Diamondbacks farmhand Kyle Jensen hit a game-tying homer in his Japan first-team debut, and Yuki Yanagita singled in the winning run in the 10th inning as SoftBank came from behind to beat Yakult.