Eiichi Koyano drove in three runs and Atsunori Inaba and Yoshio Itoi had two RBIs apiece as the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters routed the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks 9-3 to win their fifth game in a row on Wednesday.
Inaba opened the scoring in the first inning against Hideaki Takahashi (2-2) with an RBI double and had a run-scoring single in a five-run fourth, which featured Itoi's two-run homer at Kitakyushu Stadium. The Fighters banged out 12 hits and scored nine runs through the fourth inning.
Ryo Sakakibara (3-0) won in relief. Kensuke Tanaka extended his hitting streak to 22 games in a 3-for-5 outing. Nobuhiko Matsunaka had a leadoff shot and Roberto Petagine added a two-run drive in the fourth for Softbank.