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Sato takes advantage of rare start to KO Fighters

Tomoaki Sato doesn’t get much playing time, but he had four hits and played a big-time role in Sunday’s 7-6 stress-filled victory over the Nippon Ham Fighters at Obihiro Forest Stadium in Hokkaido.
The Lions took a 6-0 lead only to have the Fighters come back to even things up with two in the seventh inning.
Sato took a fastball from Kazumasa Kikuchi (1-0) and shot it to the wall in left to score the winning run with two outs in the top of the ninth inning.
“I felt like if we hadn’t have scored then, we weren’t going to get another chance,” said Sato, who only had 84 at-bats going into the game.
It was the first time in six years that the 10th-year veteran had four hits in a game.
Toru Hosokawa had a two-run homer, his seventh, and Dee Brown slugged his 19th to stake the Lions to a six-run lead early.

EAGLES 3, BUFFALOES 2
Masahiro Tanaka (9-6), making his first start in start in a month, held Orix to two runs over six-plus innings as last-place Rakuten won the finale of a three-game set at The Kleenex Box.
Randy Ruiz hit a solo blast in the second and Ryo Hijirisawa knocked in a run in a two-run third to back Tanaka.

HAWKS 12, MARINES 9
Hitoki Tamura had three hits, including his 16th homer, six others each had two hits as SoftBank came up with a 20-hit attack for a comeback win at Chiba Marine Stadium.

CENTRAL LEAGUE
TIGERS 8, DRAGONS 7
Takashi Toritani’s two-run single in the sixth inning turned out to be the winning runs as Hanshin held off Chunichi at Koshien Stadium.
Masahiko Morino had three of Chunichi’s six solo homers, and Kazuhiro Wada stroked his 28th longball -- the 250th of his career -- but the Dragons couldn’t get baserunners. Every hit was a homer until the ninth inning, when two singles put the go-ahead runners on base but they were stranded.

GIANTS 13, CARP 2
Alex Ramirez blasted his league-best 34th homer and Edgar Gonzalez continued his recent hot streak with three hits, including his eighth longball, as Yomiuri cruised past Hiroshima at The Zoom.
Michihiro Ogasawara had two hits, including his 21st homer.

BAYSTARS 3, SWALLOWS 1
Shuichi Murata drove in an eighth-inning run after the go-ahead run scored on a wild pitch as visiting Yokohama beat Yakult.