Yomiuri finishes with a kick …

Giants win despite having starter KO’d by comebacker

The Yomiuri Giant lost starter Seth Greisinger in the second inning, but hit back to jump back into first place.
Michihiro Ogasawara homered and had an RBI single, and recently activated Takahiko Nomaguchi (1-0) fired four scoreless innings in relief as the Giants downed the Hanshin Tigers 6-2 on Tuesday at Tokyo Dome.
Greisinger was forced to leave the game after a one-hopper off the bat of Hanshin’s Craig Brazell nailed him in the leg. Nomaguchi held the Tigers to three hits, while walking two for his first win in two years.
The Giants edged ahead of the Tigers into first place in the Central League by a half-game for the first time since the All-Star break.
Shinnosuke Abe, who came on late in the game to catch, clubbed a three-run shot in the eighth -- his career-best-tying 32nd -- to put the game out of reach.
Tetsuya Yamaguchi, the fourth reliever, worked 1.2 innings, but needed help from Daisuke Ochi to close it out.
Ryota Wakiya scored in a Yomiuri club-record 13th straight game.

SWALLOWS 3, DRAGONS 2
Josh Whitesell, hitting .311 since being picked up on June 18, hit a two-run homer -- his seventh -- to cap a three-run first inning that carried Yakult past visiting Chunichi.
Kyohei Muranaka (8-7) held the Dragons to a run over 6.2 innings to earn the win.

CARP 5, BAYSTARS 1
Jun Hirose and Akihiro Higashide each homered and Junpei Shinoda (5-4) pitched six innings of one-run ball as Hiroshima topped Yokohama to halt a six-game skid at The Zoom.

PACIFIC LEAGUE
ORIX 6, LIONS 5
Takahiro “T.O.” Okada ripped a pair of homers and drove in three, and Chihiro Kaneko (10-7) went six strong innings as Orix outlasted visiting Seibu.
Aarom Baldiris and Mitsutaka Goto also homered to offset two longballs and four RBIs from Seibu’s Dee Brown.

FIGHTERS 13, HAWKS 4
Hichori Morimoto had four hits and two RBIs, and Atsunori Inaba had two hits and two RBIs on his 38th birthday as Nippon Ham topped SoftBank at Asahikawa, Hokkaido.

EAGLES 5, MARINES 3
Norihiro Nakamura’s clutch three-run homer in the fourth helped Rakuten top Lotte at The Kleenex Box.