The good, the mad and the ugly ...

Raukten’s newcomer slugs winning shot, skipper gets, gives thumb

Randy Ruiz was at his best and skipper Marty Brown was at his maddest.
Ruiz broke an eighth-inning tie with a three-run blast, while Brown’s angry antics got his tossed for a record 11th time in a 5-2 win over Nippon Ham at the Kleenex Box on Friday.
Brown got the thumb after Motohiro Shima was called out while trying to score from second on a double by Teppei Tsuchiya in the fifth inning. It was Brown’s third ejection this season and his teams are 8-3 when he gets the boot.
The Eagles snapped Nippon Ham’s six-game winning streak, and put the brakes on their own five-game skid.
Ruiz, signed on May 25, took Takehiro Kato deep with two on after Masaru Takeda (5-6) held the Eagles to two runs over seven innings. Takeda allowed a single to Tsuchiya to open the eighth and got the hook. Kato walked Norihito Nakamura and Ruiz hit his second longball of the season.
The defending Pacific League champion Fighters are still in fifth place, three games ahead of the cellar-dwelling Eagles.

MARINES 7, LIONS 1
Kim Tae Kyung and Yoshifumi Okada each had three hits -- including a double -- and drove in two, and Yoshihisa Naruse (8-7) went the distance as host Lotte smashed Seibu.
The Marines topped Seibu ace and last year’s Sawamura Award winner Hideaki Wakui (10-4) as Naruse tossed a five-hitter with 10 punchouts.

BUFFALOES 5, HAWKS 2
Alex Cabrera had a two-run homer and Shogo Akada had two hits and two RBIs to lead Orix past host SoftBank.
The Buffaloes won their fourth straight, their longest winning streak since the first week of the season.

CENTRAL LEAGUE
TIGERS 10, GIANTS 8
Craig Brazell ripped his 27th homer, a two-run shot in the eighth inning, to give Hanshin the lead, and Takashi Toritani added a two-run shot in the ninth inning to finish off a wild win over Yomiuri at Tokyo Dome.
Shinnosuke Abe popped his CL-best 27th homer in a two-run fourth, but Brazell tied him with his shot and the second-place Tigers moved to within three games of the Giants.

CARP 2, BAYSTARS 1
Yoshiyuki Ishihara’s RBI double in the seventh was the difference as Hiroshima topped Yokohama at the Zoom.