Tuffy Rhodes and Toshihisa Nishi each homered to drive in five runs and Koji Uehara limited the damage to three runs over seven strong innings as the Yomiuri Giants stomped the Hiroshima Carp 13-3 in the Central League Wednesday.
Tomoaki Kanemoto of the Hanshin Tigers smacks a two-run home run off Chunichi Dragons starter Masahiro Yamamoto at Koshien Stadium.
Rhodes hit a two-run shot in a three-run second for his league-leading 35th homer and his third in as many games while Nishi gave the home team an 8-0 lead with his shot in the third at Tokyo Dome.
Uehara (8-5), who leads the team in wins, struck out four, walked one and gave up solo shots to Shigenobu Shima and Andy Sheets. Takaya Kawauchi (6-5) took the loss as Hiroshima fell eight games below .500.
Swallows 5, BayStars 2
At Jingu Stadium, Akinori Iwamura and Atsuya Furuta tied the game on back-to-back doubles with two out in the seventh inning and Ken Suzuki singled home the go-ahead run as Yakult won its fifth straight to return to .500 for the first time in two months.
Late game: Dragons 10, Tigers 9 (11)
PACIFIC LEAGUE
Marines 13, BlueWave 9
At Yahoo BB Stadium, Koji Hirashita hit a two-run homer to cap a three-run second inning and Tsuyoshi Nishioka drove in four runs, leading Lotte to a victory over Orix in a 35-hit slugfest.
Orix came up short despite its aggressive 18-hit attack and slipped 19 games below .500.
Fighters 8, Buffaloes 4
At Osaka Dome, Sherman Obando delivered a two-run go-ahead double in the ninth inning and the Nippon Ham offense tacked on three insurance runs for its fourth straight victory over Kintetsu since the All-Star break.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.