Takahiro Norimoto won a scintillating pitchers' duel with Rick van den Hurk on Wednesday before the Pacific League-leading Rakuten Eagles added on against the SoftBank Hawks bullpen in a 4-1 win.
Norimoto (10-2) allowed a run in eight innings, while striking out 11. He gave up five hits and walked three. Van Den Hurk (8-5), who was burned on a fluke RBI single, gave up two runs on five hits and two walks over 6-2/3 strong innings.
The victory, before 27,209 at Kobo Park Miyagi, moved the Eagles 2-1/2 games clear of the Hawks in the PL standings.
With neither pitcher showing any sign of breaking, the Eagles lucked into a seventh-inning run. Kazuo Matsui drew a two-out walk and scored from first when center fielder Yuki Yanagita failed to make a sliding catch on Toshiaki Imae's fly in shallow center. The ball bounced out of Yanagita's glove and away from him, allowing the 41-year-old Matsui to sprint home.
"It was pretty ugly, but looking back on it now, I think it was beautiful," Imae said. "I had my eye on the ball and Matsui still has good wheels so I thought he'd score."
Norimoto took a while to find his rhythm. A pair of inning-ending double plays saw him escape tight spots in the first and third innings before the Hawks broke through in the fourth.
"I didn't pitch well early and only was able to make it a close because of the fielders behind me," Norimoto said. "To allow just one run in a game like this is huge. I got sorted out, got some good advice from pitching coach (Tsuyoshi) Yoda and made some adjustments."
A Yuki Yanagita leadoff single and a one-out Akira Nakamura double put the visitors in front. But van den Hurk surrendered a leadoff homer in the bottom of the inning to Zelous Wheeler.
The 1.98-meter Dutchman, however, retired the next 11 batters before losing Matsui on six pitches. When Imae miss-hit a fat 3-2 pitch, it looked like van den Hurk was out of the inning. Yanagita came tearing in but couldn't quite make the play. Van den Hurk walked the next batter before being pulled after walking two, striking out four and giving up five hits.
Yuito Mori, the Hawks' third pitcher, entered with one out in the eighth and surrendered Japhet Amador's fifth home run in three games. A walk and a single to Ginji Akaminai set up Luis Cruz, who singled in the Eagles' fourth run after joining the club earlier in the day from the Yomiuri Giants.
Norimoto struck out the Hawks in the eighth before leaving the game and setup man Hiroyuki Fukuyama worked a 1-2-3 ninth to earn his first save of the season.
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Fighters 4, Marines 2
At Obihiro Stadium, Naoyuki Uwasawa (3-3) allowed two runs in seven innings, Kenji Yano had a game-reversing, two-run, pinch-hit single and Shohei Otani hit a ball out of the park for his first home run since April as Nippon Ham beat Lotte. It was the Fighters' 1,000th win since moving to Hokkaido in 2004.
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Lions 6, Buffaloes 2
At MetLife Dome, Takeya Nakamura's two-run, first-inning homer tied it for Seibu and his fifth-inning single brought in an insurance run in a win over Orix.
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Central League
Carp 7, Giants 2
At Kyocera Dome, Daichi Osera (7-0) allowed a run over seven innings, and Hiroshima bombarded Yomiuri with home runs from Seiya Suzuki, Yoshihiro Maru and Brad Eldred.
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BayStars 6, Tigers 5
At Koshien Stadium, Joe Wieland (5-2) allowed three runs in 6-1/3 innings, while Takayuki Kajitani and No. 9 hitter Toshihiko Kuramoto each drove in two runs and DeNA held off Hanshin.
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Swallows 11, 10 inning
At Jingu Stadium, Shoitsu Omatsu hit his second pinch-hit sayonara homer of the season, lifting Yakult a record-tying win over Chunichi. The Swallows tied a Nippon Professional Baseball record by coming back to after trailing by 10 runs.
