It's a jungle out there ...

Lions tumble into 2nd place

The Seibu Lions were salivating over a possible Pacific League title just last week. Now, they’re tongues are hanging out for a different reason.
The Lions sent their ace to the mound on four days’ rest and still fell to the lowly Rakuten Eagles 4-3 at home on Thursday, tumbling out of first place with their fifth straight loss.
Seibu’s magic number, which was four on Sept. 16, magically turned into a magic number of two for SoftBank, which routed Lotte 9-3 in a day game.
Takeshi Yamasaki and Randy Ruiz hit back-to-back solo homers in the second inning, and Taishi Nakagawa’s two-run single in the third gave Rakuten a 4-1 lead, and third-year hurler Yasunori Kikuchi won his pro debut with five innings of two-run ball.
Hideaki Wakui (14-8) lasted only three innings on short rest. He allowed six hits and a walk, while fanning five in Seibu’s home finale.
Rakuten skipper Marty Brown extended his NPB record for ejections, getting the thumb for the 12th time in his career, the fourth time this year, for arguing a close play at second base.
The Lions have two games remaining, while the Hawks have three.

HAWKS 9, MARINES 3
Tsuyoshi Wada (17-8) pitched SoftBank past Lotte, scattering five hits and fanning 10 with two walks over seven innings in a win at Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome.
Munenori Kawasaki had three hits and three RBIs to back Wada, who took over the PL lead in wins.

CENTRAL LEAGUE
TIGERS 6, DRAGONS 1
Matt Murton had three hits, including a homer and a double, and drove in two to become just the fourth player in NPB history to reach 200 hits in a season as Hanshin topped host Chunichi.
Murton became the second foreign player to reach 200 hits--joining Yomiuri’s Alex Ramirez. Murton has 10 games left to surpass the 204 hits Ramirez had in 2007.
Atsushi Nomi (5-0) limited Chunichi to a run on five hits and no walks with nine strikeouts for the win, which pushed Hanshin back into second by percentage points over Yomiuri.

BAYSTARS 5, GIANTS 2
Brett Harper had a two-run blast in the third, and Jose Castillo drilled a two-run shot to break a 2-2 tie in the sixth as Yokohama avoided a sweep to Yomiuri at Tokyo Dome.
Tomokazu Oka (7-9) held the Giants to two runs on five hits and no walks over seven innings for the win.

SWALLOWS 3, CARP 0
Shohei Tateyama (11-6) fired a six-hitter as Yakult blanked Hiroshima at The Zoom.
Josh Whitesell had a solo homer in the fourth to back Tateyama, and the Swallows added two more runs in the seventh.
Yakult’s Norichika Aoki had one hit to leave him three shy of 200.