Flight ends for Swallows ...

Hanshin halts Yakult’s winning streak at 10

Yakult’s longest winning streak since 2002 couldn’t stand up to Jason Standridge.
The righty held the red-hot Swallows, who had won 10 straight, to two runs over six-plus innings as Hanshin won 4-3 at Kyocera Dome Osaka and kept pace with the Central League’s front-running Yomiuri Giants.
Standridge (8-2) allowed five hits and walked three, while fanning one to win for the sixth time in seven decisions.
Takahiro Arai had an RBI groundout in the first and a run-scoring single in the third, and Kenji Jojima’s RBI single in the sixth proved to be the difference as Hanshin won to stay one game back of Yomiuri.
Kyuji Fujikawa worked around a walk and an infield single in the ninth for his 20th save, the fourth straight year he has closed out at least that many games.
The Swallows also saw their consecutive game streak with double digits in hits snapped at seven.

DRAGONS 4, SWALLOWS 3, 12 INNINGS
Masahiro Araki pulled off the butcher-boy, pulling the bat back before whistling a single down the right-field line to give Chunichi a sayonara win over Hiroshima at Nagoya Dome.
Six Chunichi relievers combined to toss seven scoreless innings, and closer Hitoki Iwase (1-1) won for the first time since last Aug. 29 with a perfect 12th.

GIANTS 5, BAYSTARS 2
Fourth-year shortstop Hayato Sakamoto extended his career-best homer total to 21 with a first-inning shot, Alex Ramirez cracked his league-leading 38 th, and Michihiro “Guts” Ogasawara and Edgar Gonzalez also homered as Yomiuri blasted visiting Yokohama.

PACIFIC LEAGUE
HAWKS 2, FIGHTERS 0
In one of the strangest games of the season, Toshiya Sugiuchi (14-5) fanned 12 and walked three in a two-hitter as SoftBank blanked visiting Nippon Ham.
The Hawks had just three hits, all in a two-run second inning in which Hidenori Tanoue doubled with the bases loaded and Yuya Hasegawa was gunned down at the plate for the final out of the frame.
Three Fighters relievers combined for five perfect innings after starter Ryo Sakakibara (5-1) allowed two runs in four innings.

LIONS 8, BUFFALOES 3
Hiroyuki Nakajima doubled twice and drove in two, and Jose Fernandez had two hits and a pair of RBIs to lead first-place Seibu past visiting Orix for its season-best sixth straight win.

MARINES 3, EAGLES 2
Kohei Hasebe (3-3) uncorked a bases-loaded wild pitch in the fifth to plate the tying and go-ahead runs as Rakuten fell to host Lotte.