Maybe it’s in the stars ...

Fighters come up with Tanabata victory

The Nippon Ham Fighters celebrated Tanabata day by striking with a hidden star for a 6-2 win over SoftBank at Tokyo Dome on Wednesday.
Tanabata, the day reserved for star-crossed lovers to meet in the heavens, brought the defending Pacific League champs some good fortune as No. 9 hitter Makoto Kaneko’s two-run single highlighted a four-run seventh in a comeback win.
It was only the second time in 30 games in which the Fighters, who have struggled all season, have come back to win when trailing after six innings.
And they got to one off the league’s top relievers, Tadashi Settsu, last year’s top rookie for their first win in six tries at the Big Egg.
Settsu is the PL leader in holds with 23 and had a 1.90 ERA coming in, but he had the worst outing of his career as the Fighters knocked him around for four runs on five hits and a hit batter.
The Fighters moved into sole possession of fourth place in the PL. The Hawks remain safely in third, 2.5 games back of SoftBank.

EAGLES 6, MARINES 4
Ryo Hijirisawa cracked his first career grand slam, and four Rakuten relievers combined to toss 6.2 scoreless innings in a win at the Kleenex Box.
Rakuten’s 24-year veteran Takeshi Yamasaki whiffed in the second inning to become just the ninth player in Japanese baseball history to strike out 1,500 times.

LIONS 11, BUFFALOES 7
Takyua Hara’s bases-clearing double in the fifth gave Seibu the lead, and four relievers kept Orix off the board over four innings in a win at Kyocera Dome Osaka.
Dee Brown had two hits and two RBIs, and Ryo Sakata had two hits, including his second longball, and three RBIs to lead the Lions.

CENTRAL LEAGUE
TIGERS 3, SWALLOWS 2
Kentaro Sekimoto hit a pinch-hit homer, his second of the season and fifth of his career, to break a 2-2 tie in the sixth and lift Hanshin past visiting Yakult.
It was his 10th straight pinch-hit appearance in which he reached base, one off the Japan pro baseball record.
The Tigers’ Matt Murton had three hits -- his 11th game with three or more hits-- to take over the CL batting lead with a .350 average.

CARP 8, GIANTS 2
Kenta Maeda (11-3) proved his all-star value, holding host Yomiuri to two runs on six hits and two walks over seven innings as Hiroshima topped Yomiuri.
Justin Huber and Tetsuya Kokubo each four hits and an RBI.

The Dragons were rained out at the BayStars.