Shinobu Fukuhara pitched seven shutout innings and Kentaro Sekimoto went 3-for-5 with a solo homer as the Hanshin Tigers beat the Yokohama BayStars 4-1 Tuesday for their fourth straight win.
Kazuhiro Kiyohara of the Orix Buffaloes hits a pop fly to center in the sixth inning of Tuesday
night's game against the Seibu Lions at Skymark Stadium. The Lions went on to beat the Buffaloes 4-3.
KYODO PHOTOFukuhara (8-2) struck out seven, scattered five singles and walked one before Jeff Williams threw a hitless eighth and Darwin Cubillan closed out the ninth at Yokohama Stadium.
Hanshin took a 2-0 lead on back-to-back RBI hits from Akihiro Yano and Atsushi Fujimoto and made it 4-0 on a third-inning solo shot by Sekimoto and a run-scoring single by Osamu Hamanaka in the fifth off Ken Kadokura (6-6).
Hitoshi Taneda had a two-out RBI single in the ninth for the BayStars.
Carp at Dragons -- ppd.
Giants at Swallows -- ppd.
PACIFIC LEAGUE
Marines 5, Eagles 2
At Akita Prefectural Stadium, Tsuyoshi Nishioka went 3-for-5 with RBI hits in consecutive at-bats to help make a winner of Naoyuki Shimizu (7-7), who limited the damage to one run against Rakuten in 6 2/3 innings to set the pace in Chiba Lotte's third straight win.
Lions 4, Buffaloes 3
In Kobe, Yoshihito Ishii drove in the tiebreaking run on a single in the ninth inning, lifting Pacific-League Seibu to a win over Orix.
Fighters 7, Hawks 0
In Fukuoka, Yoshitaka Hashimoto pitched the first shutout of his baseball career, sending Softbank to its third loss in a row.