The mighty have fallen … into 3rd place ...

Dragons sweep Giants, move into 2nd

Back in May JBD predicted a boring Central League regular season with the Yomiuri Giants powering their way to the regular-season title.
The plug was pulled on that theory last month when Giants lacked run prevention, and it seems the backup generators have gone out after a 3-0 shutout loss at Nagoya Dome on Thursday.
Kazuki Yoshimi (11-6) notched his first shutout of the season, the seventh of his career, tossing a five-hitter in the Chunichi Dragons’ second three-game sweep of Yomiuri at their dome this year.
The Dragons became the first CL team to win 60 games and pushed the Giants into third place. The victory was Chunichi’s 12th straight at home, tying a franchise record set in 1954 (a Japan Series championship year), and their seventh straight win overall to move a season-best 11 games over .500 for a half-game lead over Yomiuri. It's their longest winning streak at Nagoya Dome.
Yoshimi fanned a career-best-tying 11, while walking one. He was perfect through 4.2 innings until Edgar Gonzalez scratched out a single.
Yoshimi’s biggest jam came in the sixth when he struck out Michihiro “Guts” Ogasawara with runners on second and third to end the inning. The Giants put two on in the seventh, but Yoshimi retired Ryota Wakiya and Yoshiyuki Kamei to escape that pinch.
Masahiro Araki had three hits, including a second-inning, two-run single, and Kohei Oda doubled in Naomichi Donoue with two outs in the seventh to back Yoshimi.

SWALLOWS 7, CAPR 2
Shinya Miyamoto capped a five-run first with a three-run homer, and Yoshinori Sato (9-6) made it through eight innings on a career-high 144 pitches as Yakult routed Hiroshima at The Zoom.

TIGERS 10, BAYSTARS 4
Takahiro Arai cracked a two-run homer and had a career-high six RBIs as front-running Hanshin won its fifth straight in a rout at Yokohama.
Hanshin plays host to Yomiuri in a three-game weekend set.

PACIFIC LEAGUE
LIONS 5, HAWKS 1
Jose Fernandez cracked his fifth homer, a solo blast n the fourth, and added a two-run single in the fifth as Seibu shut down SoftBank at Seibu Dome.
The first-place Lions moved 17 games over .500 and pushed their PL lead over SoftBank 3.5 games.

BUFFALOES 6, EAGLES 5
Shinji Shimoyama took Hiroshi Katayama (1-2) deep for his first homer of the season to give Orix a walk-off win over Rakuten at Skymark Stadium.
Tomotaka Sakaguchi had three hits and two RBIs for Orix, which moved back to .500.

MARINES 7, FIGHTERS 0
Yuki Karakawa (5-3) fired a four-hitter, and Saburo Omura belted his fourth career grand slam as Lotte blanked host Nippon Ham at Tokyo Dome.