Takumi Kuriyama led off the game with a homer and hit a go-ahead single in a three-run 10th to lift the Seibu Lions to a 4-1 extra-inning victory over the front-running Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters on Wednesday.
Kuriyama broke a 1-1 deadlock with a single up the middle off Hisashi Takeda (4-3) after Toru Hosokawa had doubled leading off the 10th and moved to third on a Takeya Nakamura sacrifice bunt.
Kuriyama then scored on an RBI hit by Hiroyuki Nakajima off the glove of shortstop Makoto Kaneko one out later before Alex Cabrera capped the scoring with a run-scoring single to left at Sapporo Dome.
Shinji Takahashi hit a game-tying double in the second for Seibu in a pitcher's duel between Jason Johnson and Satoru Kanemura, who both threw eight strong innings. Koji Mitsui (4-0) earned the win and rookie Tetsuya Iwasaki got his first career save.