Blowouts, rainouts and knock-down, drag out ...

Maeda’s 1st walk-off hit beats Chunichi

Two games were rained out, two others were blowouts, but pinch-hitter Tomonori Maeda helped Hiroshima win a knock-down, drag-out with the first sayonara single in his 20-year career in a 4-3 win over the Chunichi Dragons at the Zoom on Friday.
Maeda had a walk-off homer but had never had a walk-off hit. He bounced a one-out, bases-loaded single up the middle in the ninth inning off Chunichi set-up man Takuya Asao (1-1), who allowed his first run of the season.
Maeda’s last walk-off homer came in 1994, but this was his first single with runners in scoring position to win a game.
“It was my turn to have my one at-bat, and I just wanted to come through,” Maeda said. “I hadn’t faced a lot of hard-throwing pitchers like that this year, so I just threw the bat out there.”
Maeda didn’t get much playing time under former skipper Marty Brown, but he is getting more opportunities with first-year manager Kenjiro Nomura.
“Every day since camp I sit on the bench and try to spend my time wisely so I don’t have any regrets,” Maeda said. “So I’m happy to have the opportunity to get into the game and I don’t worry about the results, I just prepare to go out there and compete.”
Ken Takahashi (2-0), who worked around an error to toss a scoreless top of the ninth, got the win on his 40th birthday.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

LIONS 7, FIGHTERS 3
A young pitcher, a losing streak and the start of a road trip added up to another loss for last-place Nippon Ham as it dropped to 10 games under .500 for the first time in five years.
The visiting Fighters sent fourth-year hurler Romash Dass (0-1) -- the ninth starting pitcher for Nippon Ham already this season --to mound and he got knocked out of his second pro start after just 2.1 innings.
He suffered his first loss as Takumi Kuriyama drove in three runs and Dee Brown knocked in two.

HAWKS 9, EAGLES 1
Katsuki Yamazaki went 3-for-4, including his first homer since May 20, 2006, and four RBIs, and Tosihya Sugiuchi (4-1) allowed a run on six hits and three walks while fanning nine over eight innings as host SoftBank cruised past Rakuten.