Title drunk ...

After drinking up, Dragons can’t down Swallows

A night after celebrating their eighth Central League championship, the Chunichi Dragons at least had a reason for losing to the Yakult Swallows for the 15th time this season: They were title drunk.
Kyohei Muranaka (11-9) held the Dragons to a run on six hits over six innings as the Swallows finished off their mastery of the CL titlists 3-2 at Nagoya Dome on Saturday.
It was Muranaka’s third win this season against the Dragons, who used seven pitchers in their season finale.
Chunichi plays host to the first-stage winner of the Climax Series winner, starting on Oct. 20.
Kazuhiro Hatakeyama got the Swallows even with an RBI single in the sixth, and Josh Whitesell’s pinch-hit RBI double in the seventh was the difference.
Masahiko Morino slugged his 22nd longball, a solo shot in the ninth, to push home both Chunichi runs.
The Swallows were officially eliminated from potential postseason play when the Hanshin Tigers won earlier in the day.

GIANTS 7, BAYSTARS 1
Alex Ramirez ripped his CL-high and career-best 47th homer, and Ryota Wakiya homered, doubled and started a triple play to lead Yomiuri past lowly Yokohama at Tokyo Dome.
Ramirez’s solo blast gave him a career-best 126 RBIs, one better than his 2008 total.

TIGERS 11, CARP 4
Takashi Toritani had three hits and knocked in two to extend his recently established record for RBIs by a shortstop to 100 as Hanshin locked up a postseason spot with a win over Hiroshima at The Zoom.
Hanshin’s Matt Murton had two hits to push his CL-best-ever total to 209, one shy of Ichiro Suzuki’s 1994 NPB record.
The Tigers have four games to play.