The right start ...

Marine adventure

One good inning at the plate and four scoreless innings of relief were enough to give the Lotte Marines a 3-2 win over the Rakuten Eagles on Thursday at Chiba Marine Stadium.
The victory gave the Marines the series win, the first time they’ve opened the season by winning their first three series in 41 years.
Saburo Omura’s RBI single plated Lotte’s first run in the fourth inning and Kuzuya Fukuura’s scoring fly tied it at 2-2. Tomoya Satozaki’s two-out RBI single off former Yankee Darrell Rasner (0-1) gave the Marines the lead, and four relievers combined to shut the Eagles out over four innings to close it out.
Starter-turned-stopper Hiroyuki Kobayashi walked one and hit one in the ninth, but fanned two to nail it down.
Despite their best start in decades, the Marines are second in the Pacific League behind the hot-starting Orix Buffaloes, who were idle.

HAWKS 11, LIONS 5
Jose Ortiz went 4-for-5 with a homer and four RBIs as Fukuoka SoftBank blasted Seibu at Seibu Dome.
Ortiz socked a two-run blast in the third, and added a two-run single in the seventh as the Hawks stopped a three-game skid.

CENTRAL LEAGUE

GIANTS 12, BAYSTARS 2
Alex Ramirez had a grand slam and five RBIs, and Tetsuya Utsumi (2-0) held Yokohama to two runs over eight innings as the Giants topped the BayStars at Yokohama Stadium.
Ramirez took Stephen Randolph (0-2) out in the second inning to stake the Giants to a 7-1 lead and they cruised the rest of the way. Fourth-year Yomiuri shortstop Hayato Sakamoto was a home run shy of the cycle, going 5-for-5 for his first five-hit game.

DRAGONS 5, SWALLOWS 2
Six relievers protected a slim lead for Edward Valdez (1-0) over four innings and Tony Blanco slugged a homer to lead four players with two hits as Chunichi got past Yakult at Jingu Stadium.