Do you Nomi? ...

Lefty tosses 7 scoreless as Tigers blank Giants

Atsushi Nomi hasn’t been healthy or effective this season to put up big numbers, but he made a big impact on Saturday against the Yomiuri Giants.
The southpaw fired seven scoreless innings as the second-place Tigers put a game between themselves and third-place Giants with a 1-0 win before a packed house at Koshien Stadium.
Nomi (4-0) scattered six hits and two walks, while fanning six to lower his ERA to 2.77 in eight games. With the win, the Tigers pulled themselves to within 1.5 games of first place when front-running Chunichi, which lost at Jingu Stadium.
The Tigers had eight hits, but wasted a trio of runners, in part because Keiichi Hirano failed to get bunts down on three occasions.
Japan’s active sacrifice bunt leader failed each time he was asked to lay one down after Matt Murton got on base.
But Hirano redeemed himself by flagging down a smash with two on and none out in the eighth inning to help preserve Hanshin’s 1-0 lead.
Dicky Gonzalez (5-11) tossed 6.2 innings of one-run ball, but added to his career-worst loss total.

CARP 16, BAYSTARS 6
Shogo Kimura had five hits, Soichiro Amaya had four hits and Shigenobu Shima had three hits and four RBIs as Hiroshima used 24 hits to batter hapless host Yokohama.
It was the franchise-record 20th time this season the BayStars have allowed double digits in runs.
Former BayStar Takuro Ishii had three singles, his 162nd game of three or more hits.

SWALLOWS 6, DRAGONS 1
Shohei Tateyama (10-6) shut down Chunichi on six hits and a walk over six innings as fourth-place Yakult knocked off the Dragons at Jingu Stadium.
Chunichi skipper Hiromitsu Ochiai got the thumb for the second time this season for arguing with umpires in the fifth inning.

PACIFIC LEAGUE
FIGHTERS 3, BUFFLAOES
Yu Darvish (12-7) scattered eight hits and two walks, while fanning 11 as Nippon Ham nudged its way into the final playoff position with a win over visiting Orix.
Yoshio Itoi’s fourth-inning RBI single gave the Fighters the lead and Eiichi Koyano scored on an error for the reigning PL champs, who rode Darvish as he tied for the league lead in Ks with 200.

HAWKS 9, LIONS 7, 11 INNINGS
Roberto Petagine, Nobuhiko Matsunaka and Hiroki Kokubo all homered, Kokubo’s coming in the 11th inning to give SotBank a walk-off win over Seibu.
The Hawks rallied from four runs down to keep the Lions’ magic number to win the league title at four.

EAGLES 4, MARINES 3
Norihiro Nakamra capped a two-run, ninth-inning rally off Hiroyuki Kobayashi (3-2) with an RBI single as Rakuten rallied for a walk-off win over visiting Lotte.
It was the Marines’ 15 straight loss at the Kleenex Box.