Shinnosuke Ogasawara threw five shutout innings to earn his first win of the year as the Chunichi Dragons beat the Pacific League-leading Rakuten Eagles 6-3 in interleague action on Friday, with Alex Guerrero scoring the first run and hitting his sixth home run in five games.
Ogasawara (1-1), who was 2-6 in his rookie year last season, held the strong Rakuten batting order to two hits and three walks. The lefty struck out seven before he got the hook after a 110-pitch effort, with his team leading 1-0.
"I was hanging in there trying not to give them the first run," the 19-year-old said after earning his first win at Nagoya Dome. "This feels awesome. I'm happy to hear so many congratulating words and hopefully I can pitch even better next time."
"I threw a lot of pitches and also needed help from the relievers after me. I find things to work on every time I pitch, and I'll try to eradicate them all by the end of the season," he said.
Guerrero tripled off Rakuten's Yuri Furukawa (0-1) before Ryosuke Hirata's RBI double broke the ice. Furukawa allowed a run over five inning on three hits and three walks, fanning two in a 75-pitch outing.
Chunichi veteran Masahiro Araki singled in two runs off Rakuten reliever Kenji Tomura in the seventh with his career's 1,999th hit, before Guerrero belted a solo shot to open the eighth off Shu Sugahara for his 15th clout of the season. The right-hander threw two wild pitches to hand Chunichi two more runs.
Three relievers, including veteran Hitoki Iwase, blanked the Eagles through the eighth inning. Rakuten finally scored in the ninth through a three-run shot from Hiroaki Shimauchi but the comeback came a little too late as its five-game winning streak came to a halt.
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Fighters 4, Tigers 2
At Koshien Stadium, Takuya Nakashima squeezed in the game-tying run before Go Matsumoto plated two runs with a double off Hanshin closer Rafael Dolis (0-3) in the ninth as Nippon Ham came from behind.
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Lions 3, Swallows 2
At Jingu Stadium, Seibu tied the game with a passed ball from Yakult catcher Yuhei Nakamura in the seventh before pinch runner
Daichi Mizuguchi scored the go-ahead run on a groundout. Yusei Kikuchi (6-2) allowed two runs over six innings to pick up the win, while Yakult is still without a win four interleague games.
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Hawks 6, BayStars 4
At Yokohama Stadium, Yuki Yanagita and Alfredo Despaigne doubled in a run each off DeNA starter Phil Klein (2-3) as SoftBank jumped to a 4-0 lead in the first inning. Rick van den Hurk allowed four runs over six innings to earn the win, fanning 10, while DeNA lost its fourth straight.
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Buffaloes 6, Giants 5, 11 innings
At Tokyo Dome, Ryoichi Adachi, who had three doubles, went deep to break the tie in the 11th off Nobutaka Imamura (0-1) and Kengo Takeda singled in another as Orix won its fifth straight. Yomiuri's Scott Mathieson allowed three runs in the ninth to relinquish his team's lead as the Giants lost eight straight for the first time in 11 years.
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Marines 5, Carp 4, 12 innings
At Mazda Stadium, Hiroshima scored four runs to tie the game in the fifth after a solo shot from Brad Eldred and a three-run homer from Kosuke Tanaka, but Lotte pinch hitter Matt Duffy hit an RBI double off Hiroshima's Ryan Brasier (2-1) in the 12th for the decisive run.
