Back in the saddle ...

Tigers trounce Giants to regain CL’s top spot

The three-time defending Central League champion Yomiuri Giants were the runaway favorites to repeat this year. Now they’re running into trouble.
The Tigers banged out five hits in a four-run second inning, and first-year import Randy Messenger went seven innings in his longest outing as Hanshin retook first place by a half-game, pounding the Giants 8-4 on Wednesday at Tokyo Dome.
Keiichi Hirano had three hits, including a three-run bomb -- his first of the season -- and had four RBIs to back Messenger (3-1).
Alex Ramirez drilled his league-high 35 th homer, a solo shot in the fourth.
Messenger hit a drive to left in the second inning that was initially ruled a homer but umpires used video review to change the call to a double. Messenger eventually scored Takashi Toritani’s clutch single to make it 3-0 Tigers.
Yomiuri’s Ryota Wakiya blasted a two-run homer in the ninth inning to give him 14 consecutive games with a run scored, tying the CL record.

SWALLOWS 4, DRAGONS 2
Masanori Ishikawa (7-8) shut down Chunichi over 6.2 innings as host Yakult sent the Dragons to their fourth straight loss.

BAYSTARS 6, CARP 5
Tatsuhiko Kinjo’s fly to right was just deep enough to score Shingo Nonaka from third in the ninth inning of a four-hour, 23-minute struggle with Hiroshima that Yokohama won at The Zoom.

PACIFIC LEAGUE
EAGLES 5, MARINES 3
Takeshi Yamasaki broke a 3-3 tie with his 20th homer, a two-run shot, in the eighth inning as Rakuten downed visiting Lotte, which lost its season-worst sixth straight.
The Eagles had just seen the potential go-ahead run called out at the plate when Teppei Tsuchiya doubled into the right-field corner with runners on first and second. Shunsuke Uchimura was ruled to have slid past the plate and Lotte catcher Tomoya Satozaki applied the late tag to keep the score tied.
Yamasaki made up for that, taking Yasuhiko Yabuta (1-4) deep to left for a clutch game-winning homer, making it four straight years -- his 10th time overall -- he has hit at least 20 longballs. He is the third player in NPB history to hit at least 20 at 42 years old.

FIGHTERS 6, HAWKS 4
Eiichi Koyano took over the PL RBI lead by slugging his career-best 11th homer, and three others went deep to beat SoftBank at Asahikawa, Hokkaido.
SoftBank’s Tsuyoshi Wada (13-5) saw his personal four-game winning streak snapped after getting battered for a career-worst four long balls.
Nippon Ham’s 42-year-old righty Masao Kida (5-1) won his third straight start with five solid innings.

BUFFALOES 6, LIONS 5, 11 INNINGS
Orix slugger Takahiro “T.O.” Okada drove in the winning run with the fourth straight single off 47-year-old Seibu hurler Kimiyasu Kudo, who didn’t retire a batter in the 11th at Kyocera Dome.