Chiba – Nick Martinez threw seven scoreless innings within the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks’ 5-0 win over the Chiba Lotte Marines on Thursday afternoon for his or her second straight win over the Pacific League leaders.
The Hawks, who’ve gained the final 4 Japan Collection, are fourth, seven video games again of the first-place Marines and two video games again of the third-place Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, who occupy the PL’s remaining playoff spot.
“It’s the purpose of the season the place you must win large video games in opposition to good groups in case you’re going to make the playoffs,” Martinez mentioned.
Martinez, who gained a Tokyo Olympic silver medal pitching for the USA, improved to 8-3. He struck out three whereas scattering 5 hits and three walks, ending three innings with two runners on base.
“It was an amazing job throughout for our workforce,” Martinez mentioned. “I used to be attacking the zone. It (Lotte) is a very good workforce, so you possibly can’t get away with errors within the zone.”
The Hawks opened the scoring in opposition to Seiya Dohi within the second inning. The lefty was known as on to begin on the final minute after hard-throwing teenager Roki Sasaki was unable to pitch.
Yuki Yanagita led off the second together with his twenty seventh dwelling run. The Hawks had 5 hits within the inning with one run scoring on a Nobuhiro Matsuda sacrifice fly and one other on a two-out Masaki Mimori double.
Ryoya Kurihara’s sixteenth dwelling run within the fifth, off rookie Shota Suzuki, made it 4-0. Alfredo Despaigne singled in a seventh-inning insurance coverage run to finish the scoring.
SoftBank reliever Yugo Bando set the Marines down so as within the eighth and ninth to finish the shutout.
Fighters 4, Buffaloes 2
At Kyocera Dome Osaka, Hokkaido Nippon Ham nearer Toshihiro Sugiura pitched out of a ninth-inning jam to assist the workforce safe a win over second-place Orix, which remained 2½ again.
Lions 4, Eagles 3
At Tokorozawa’s MetLife Dome, Tomoya Mori homered and reached base 5 instances, together with a two-out ninth-inning double that arrange Seibu’s profitable run.
CENTRAL LEAGUE
Dragons 3, Tigers 3
At Vantelin Dome Nagoya, Kosuke Fukudome’s pinch-hit RBI double tied the sport within the ninth inning as Chunichi got here from two runs down within the remaining body to tie the Hanshin Tigers 3-3. Hanshin began the day second within the Central League, trailing the Tokyo Yakult Swallows on profitable proportion .571 to .568.
Giants 5, Carp 0
At Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium, Sho Nakata, Hayato Sakamoto and Zelous Wheeler every homered for Yomiuri, which moved to inside two video games of the Tigers.
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