Finally, I cover a game …

The redeeming qualities of the game

TOKOROZAWA Saitama -- One of the beauties of sports, particularly baseball, is the way it allows players to make up for their mistakes in the natural flow of the game.
Kazuki Kondo and Mitsutaka Goto were both able to put their mistakes behind them, helping the visiting Orix Buffaloes snap a five-game skid in a 5-4 10-inning win over the Seibu Lions on Thursday. Goto’s 10-inning RBI single got Orix the lead and Jon Leicester shut it down in the ninth with three punchouts.
Kondo surrendered five hits, walked one and hit one to put the Buffaloes in a 3-0 hole after three innings. But then put four zeroes up before departing with a one-run lead after six frames and got a no-decision.
Goto had a chance to turn an inning-ending double play in the seventh, but instead dropped the ball and failed to get an out. The tying run scored on the play to make it 4-4, but he made up for it by rolling a single through the hole between second and first with a runner on third in the 10th inning, and Orix got a much-needed win.
“We played some baseball for the first time in a long while,” said first-year skipper Akinobu Okada.
The Buffaloes got homers from Alex Cabrera (in his old stomping ground) and Greg LaRocca, and an RBI single from another former Lion, Shogo Akada, to win for the first time in April.

FIGHTERS 8, EAGLES 4
Kensuke Tanaka was one of four Nippon Ham starters with two hits and one RBI, and Yoshio Itoi had two RBIs as the defending PL champion Fighters downed Rakuten at Sapporo Dome to improve to 3-10 and stop a three-game skid.
Rakuten’s 41-year-old slugger Takeshi Yamasaki clubbed his second homer and became just the 46th player to have 3,000 total bases.

HAWKS 9, MARINES 1
Eighth-year lefty Tsuyoshi Wada (2-1) fanned a career-high 15 with no walks, and Jose Ortiz hit his 100th homer in Japan and added a double to drive in two as SoftBank drubbed Lotte at Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome.
Wada was one strikeout short of the club record.

CENTRAL LEAGUE

GIANTS 8, TIGERS 5
Hot-hitting rookie Hisayoshi Chono ripped his second homer, a three-run shot, and Alex Ramirez also homered as Yomiuri topped Hanshin at Koshien Stadium.
Still mourning the loss of first-year coach Takuya Kimura, who died early Wednesday morning, the Giants won their fourth straight and moved into a share of first in the CL.

CARP 4, SWALLOWS 0
Kenta Maeda (2-1) blanked Yakult over eight innings, allowing four hits with no walks, and Eishin Soyogi’s sac fly in the fifth inning as Hiroshima whitewashed the Swallows at Jingu Stadium.

BAYSTARS 2, DRAGONS 1
Hayato Terahara (1-1) held visiting Chunichi to a run over seven innings and doubled home a run in the fourth inning that proved to be the difference as Yokohama won to stop a two-game losing streak and snap the Dragons’ six-game winning streak.