Maeda steps up ...

Soon-to-be All-Star top Giants

Kenta Maeda is showing why fans voted him into the All-Star for the first time.
The fourth-year Hiroshima Carp starter gave the front-running Yomiuri Giants a firsthand look at his work, dominating them in a 5-1 win Thursday at the Zoom.
The right-hander scattered four hits and a hit batter over the distance, firing 117 pitches for his third complete game.
Maeda (10-3) reached double digits in wins for the first time in his career, and matched Yomiuri’s Shun Tono as the Central League's only 10-game winners.
Akihiro Higashide had three hits and an RBI to help Maeda win his fifth straight at the Zoom. Maeda lowered his CL-leading ERA to 1.56 and fanned eight to improve his strikeout total to a league-best 104.
Masato Akamatsu got the Carp out in front in the first, tripling in a run with one out. Shigenobu Shima followed with an RBI base knock for a 2-0 advantage and Hiroshima eventually made it 5-0 before the Giants scored in the sixth inning.

TIGERS 5, DRAGONS 1
Matt Murton tied the score with an RBI single in the eighth inning, and Kenji Jojima capped a five-run rally with a two-run homer as Hanshin came back to beat Chunichi at Koshien Stadium.
The Tigers had just three hits off Chunichi righty Kazuki Yoshimi (7-4) over seven innings, but Takahiro Arai followed Murton’s hit with a two-run single for the Tigers’ fourth straight hit.
Murton has hit safely in 16 straight games.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

FIGHTERS 9, LIONS 7
Atsunori Inaba led four players with three hits, driving in two as Nippon Ham outlasted host Seibu to win their season-best sixth straight.
PL batting leader Kensuke Tanaka had two hits, including a homer, and three RBIs as the defending league champs punched out a season-high 19 hits to reach .500 for the first time this season.

MARINES 7, HAWKS 2
Shunsuke Watanabe, the Sub-Marine, tossed his 26th career complete game, his second this year.
The righty scattered eight hits and a walk, while punching out five as Lotte won back-to-back games for the first time in a month.

BUFFALOES 10, EAGLES 0
Alex Cabrera hoomered twice and drove in six, and Takahiro Okada had his first career two-homer game as Orix pounded Rakuten at Kyocera Dome.
Chihiro Kaneko (5-7) fired a four-hitter, walking one and fanning seven for his third shutout this season.