Winging out ...

Swallows on the fly after 8th straight win

The Swallows haven’t been this high in seven years.
Yakult’s Yasushi Iihara homered twice to offset a pair bombs by Shinnosuke Abe as the Swallows came back from an early deficit to top the Yomiuri Giants 7-5 and run their season-high winning streak to eight.
Abe hit his 34th and career-high 35th longballs, the second in the third inning to give the Giants a 5-2 lead, but Iihara drove in a career-best-tying five runs.
The Swallows haven’t been this hot since winning eight straight in September 2003. They moved to within 3.5 games of the third-place Chunichi Dragons for the third and final playoff spot.
It was the first two-homer game for Iihara since July 7, 2007.

BAYSTARS 9, DRAGONS 6
Jose Castillo belted two homers and Brett Harper doubled and homered, and each drove in three runs to help Yokohama down visiting Chunichi.
Second-year righty Yota Kosugi (1-1) earned his first pro win, lasting the minimum and allowing four runs.

PACIFIC LEAGUE
FIGHTERS 4, MARINES 3
Eiichi Koyano had three hits and an RBI, and Sho Nakata’s fifth-inning triple, his first as a pro, plated the run that proved to be the difference as Nippon Ham edged Lotte at Chiba Marine Stadium.
Rookie Masaru Muranaka (1-0) won in his first pro start, holding Lotte to a run on three hits and three walks with six punchouts over five innings.

HAWKS 7, BUFFALOES 2
Tsuyoshi Wada (14-5) fanned 10 en route to his PL-best 14th win to help Softbank snap its six-game skid with a win over visiting Orix.
The 14 wins tie Wada’s single-season best, and he was backed by Hitoshi Tamura, who doubled twice to drive in two runs.

The Tigers and Carp were rained out at The Zoom, while the Lions and Eagles were rained out at The Kleenex Box.