The ups and downs …

BayStars back in reserved spot

The Yokohama BayStars got great pitching, played good defense and got a gift run from the front-running Yomiuri Giants at Kyocera Dome on Tuesday. None it helped them win.
Lee Seung Yeop drew a bases-loaded walk in the eighth inning to break a 1-1 tie as Yomiuri won to push Yokohama into last place in the Central League.
The BayStars, who have finished in the CL cellar the past two seasons, got a great performance from Stephen Randolph, who was lifted in the seventh inning for a pinch-hitter. The lefty tossed six innings, allowing a run on four hits and four walks with five punchouts for a no-decision.
Yomiuri’s Shugo Fujii, an offseason free agent pickup, went seven innings, allowing a run on two hits and five walks, while fanning two. He had no decision also.

DRAGONS 3, SWALLOWS 2
After suffering a weekend of come-from-ahead losses in a sweep at Hiroshima, Chunichi hung on to top Yakult at Nagoya Dome behind Kei Nomoto’s solo homer and strong pitching.
Nomoto blasted his second longball, and Kenta Asakura (1-0) won his season debut -- after being slowed by an injury -- by allowing two runs, none earned, over six-plus strong innings. Three Chunichi relievers fired a scoreless inning apiece.

TIGERS 5, CARP 0
Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi (2-1) tossed six scoreless innings, and Takahiro Arai’s RBI single in the fourth opened the scoring and Keisuke Kano followed with a three-run homer as Hanshin downed Hiroshima at Koshien Stadium.
Hanshin ironman Tomoaki Kanemoto, whose consecutive full-game streak ended over the weekend, stretched his games-played string to 1,639 with his first pinch-hit appearance at Koshien. The 42-year-old pulled himself from the lineup Sunday in Yokohama because of a sore shoulder. That ended a streak of 1,492 consecutive full games played.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

BUFFALOES 4, FIGHTERS 3
Shogo Akada’s bases-loaded single off Brian Wolfe (0-3) gave Orix its sixth come-from-behind win, a walk-off against visiting Nippon Ham.
Hirotoshi Kitagaawa’s RBI double evened the score before Akada came up with the fourth walk-off hit in his 11-plus seasons.

LIONS 8, HAWKS 2
Takayuki Kishi (4-1) fired 6.2 strong innings, and Hisashi Takayama had two hits and two RBIs as visiting Seibu topped SoftBank.

EAGLES 8, MARINES 2
Norihiro Nakamura hit s two-run blast, and Takeshi Yamasaki drove in a pair of runs with two hits as Rakuten won at Tokyo Dome to hand Lotte consecutive losses for the first this season.