Marines beat Lions again

Derrick May hit a two-run homer and Nate Minchey scattered six hits over seven innings Sunday as the Lotte newcomers led the Marines to a 6-1 win over the Seibu Lions at the Seibu Dome.

May was 2-for-4 with two RBIs, and shortstop Makoto Kosaka added a pair of runs with a single and a triple.

Minchey, former Hiroshima Carp workhorse, earned his first win for Lotte on 112 pitches as Seibu opened the season with two straight losses for the first time in five years.

Buffaloes 4, Fighters 1

At Tokyo Dome, Kintetsu southpaw Katsuhiko Maekawa pitched a five-hitter to lift the Buffaloes to a 2-0 start to this season with a win over Nippon Ham.

Hard-throwing Maekawa took a no-hitter into the fifth and went the distance on 143 pitches.

Tuffy Rhodes hit a solo homer in the second inning and Norihiro Nakamura doubled in a run in the fifth.

Nippon Ham starter Tsutomu Iwamoto struck out 10 over eight innings, but did not get the run support he needed in taking the loss.

Hawks 4, BlueWave 0

At Fukuoka Dome, former Texas Ranger Pedro Valdes hit a two-run homer and Rodney Pedraza, a native of the Lone Star state, recorded the final out for his first save of the season as the defending league champion Hawks shut out Orix.

Daiei starter Keizaburo Tanoue gave up eight hits and walked four over 82/3 innings and narrowly missed the first complete-game win of his 12-year professional career.

He was aided by an Orix team that left 12 runners stranded.

Daiei scored two runs in the fourth inning on back-to-back RBI singles by Nobuhiko Matsunaka and Kenji Jojima before Valdes drilled a homer off Shinichi Kato (0-1) in the fifth.