Who is this Darvish? …

Nippon Ham saves Darvish’s bacon

JBD said it before and the story’s the same: Who the guy using Yu Darvish’s uniform?
The one-time Sawamura Award winner got knocked around early, but hung around enough to tie a strikeout mark by two distinguished pitchers, and his teammates bailed him out with a grand slam as Nippon Ham downed Seibu 8-5 Saturday at Seibu Dome.
Darvish (3-1) tied former Kintetsu Buffaloes pitcher and major leaguer Hideo Nomo, and SoftBank’s Toshiya Sugiuchi in becoming the third hurler to record double digits in five consecutive games by fanning 10 over seven innings to earn the win.
Atsunori Inaba bashed a fifth-inning grand slam to give the Fighters a one-run lead and getting Darvish in front after the big righty allowed five runs early. He ended up surrendering six hits and five walks on 148 pitches.
Inaba broke out in the win, which snapped a four-game skid, belting a drive for his 183rd career homer, but just his third with the bases filled.

EAGLES 8, HAWKS 3
Hisashi Iwakuma (2-2) tossed his first complete game of the season, and Yosuke Takasu had two hits and four RBIs as Rakuten cruised past SoftBank at Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome.

MARINES 9, BUFFALOES 0
Yoshihisa Naruse (4-1) fired a six-hit shutout as first-place Lotte routed Orix at Chiba Marine Stadium.
The lefty fanned six and walked one, and Saburo Omura went 3-for-4 with a homer and four RBIs for the Marines.

CENTRAL LEAGUE
BAYSTARS 7, TIGERS 3
Terrmel Sledge slammed a pair of solo blasts, two of four Yokohama longballs, and Naoyuki Shimizu (2-1) went seven strong innings in a victory over visiting Hanshin.

GIANTS 6, SWALLOWS 1
Yoshiyuki Kamei’s tiebreaking single in the seventh sparked a four-run outburst in support of Shun Tono (3-1) as Yomiuri downed Yakult at Matsuyama’s Bottchan Stadium.

CARP 4, DRAGONS 3
Jun Hirose’s single in the bottom of the ninth gave Hiroshima its third sayonara win this season, and second in as many days against Chunichi at the Zoom.