Atsunori Inaba drove in the tiebreaking run with a double in the third inning and the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters went on to beat the Central League-leading Yomiuri Giants 3-1 as interleague action got under way among the 12 teams on Tuesday night.
Softbank's Manabu Morimoto hits a run-scoring double in the second inning of the interleague opener
against Hanshin at Yahoo Dome on Tuesday night. The Hawks won 2-1.
KYODO PHOTOYoshinobu Takahashi led the game off with a home run over the center-filed wall before Makoto Kaneko hit an RBI double to tie it 1-1 in the second.
Inaba delivered in the next inning with a run-scoring double to left to give Nippon Ham the lead for good in front of 40,201 frenzied fans at Sapporo Dome.