Central League home run leader Alex Ramirez hit a go-ahead two-run homer in the eighth inning as the Yomiuri Giants rallied to beat the Hanshin Tigers 6-5 on Thursday.
Michihiro Ogasawara hit a leadoff double before Ramirez connected off setup man Tomoyuki Kubota (1-1) for his 10th homer of the season, which capped Yomiuri's rally at Tokyo Dome and stopped the league-leading Tigers' winning streak at three games.
Takashi Toritani and Toshihiro Noguchi drove in two runs each with consecutive two-out hits in the fifth to help Hanshin take a 5-2 lead. Luis Gonzalez pulled the Giants within a run in the sixth with a two-run single.
Tetsuya Yamaguchi (2-1) worked two scoreless innings and Marc Kroon got his ninth save with a perfect ninth, striking out two.
Dragons 7, Carp 0
At Nagoya Dome, Kenshin Kawakami made his second straight strong start and Lee Byung Kyu drove in four runs to lift Chunichi over Hiroshima.
Kazuhiro Wada and Lee hit two-run singles in the first before the South Korean outfielder made it 6-0 in the sixth with a two-run homer, providing run support for Kawakami (2-1), who scattered five hits, struck out nine and walked none in eight shutout innings.
Swallows 5, BayStars 3
At Yokohama Stadium, pinch-hitter Yuichi Matsumoto broke a 2-2 tie with a bases-loaded triple in the seventh inning as Tokyo Yakult downed Yokohama.
Yasushi Iihara put the Swallows ahead in the fourth with a two-run double but the BayStars hit back with a Seiichi Uchikawa homer in the bottom half and an RBI single by relief pitcher Yasuhiro Oyamada in the fifth.
