OSAKA (Kyodo) — Ryoya Kurihara broke the ice in a scoreless game with a 12th-inning RBI single and two more runs soon followed as the SoftBank Hawks beat the Orix Buffaloes 3-0 on Sunday to cut their magic number to clinch the Pacific League pennant to seven.
Buffaloes lefty Hiroya Miyagi continued his run of strong starts, striking out nine over eight innings, while Hawks starting pitcher Ryosuke Otsu was just as stingy over his eight innings at Kyocera Dome Osaka.
The Hawks twice managed to load the bases against Miyagi but came up empty both times, and didn’t make any headway until the 12th. An error and two one-out walks load the bases.
Kurihara untied the game and it quickly unraveled for the Buffaloes, the three-time defending PL champions. A passed ball when SoftBank’s Hotaka Yamakawa swung and missed at a high fastball made it 2-0 before the slugger singled in another run.
“Today was 100 percent about the hitters not supporting our pitchers,” Orix manager Satoshi Nakajima said after his club managed just four hits and four walks over 12 innings. “You have to have batters who will go out and competently swing the bat.”
Among other games on Sunday, the Central League’s top clubs all won, with the first-place Yomiuri Giants beating the Chunichi Dragons 6-3 and the Hanshin Tigers coming back to beat the Yakult Swallows 2-1 to remain two games back.
The Hiroshima Carp, two games further back in third, demolished the fourth-place DeNA BayStars 10-2.
Baseball: Hawks outlast Buffaloes, trim magic number to 7
