JAPAN – Tyrone Woods homered twice and drove in five runs and right-hander Akinobu Shimizu won his first career start as the Chunichi Dragons beat the Hiroshima Carp 7-3 on Sunday.

Woods followed Lee Byung Kyu’s RBI single with a two-run shot in the first inning off Kenta Maeda (5-2) and singled in two runs to push Chunichi’s lead to 5-0 in the second at Nagoya Dome.

The three-time Central League home run leader also went deep leading off the bottom of the seventh, his 28th home run of the season, after Hiroshima got within 5-3 in the top half.

Shimizu (1-0) took a shutout into the seventh and ended up allowing three runs and five hits in 6-2/3 innings. Masahiko Morino added a solo homer in the eighth, his fourth hit of the night.

Swallows 17, BayStars 5

At Yokohama Stadium, Kazuhiro Hatakeyama and Kazuki Fukuchi each had four hits and drove in eight runs between them, leading Yakult to a rout of Yokohama.

Hatakeyama drove in Yakult’s first five runs with a three-run homer in the first inning and base hits in his next two at-bats, while Fukuchi had a two-run single in the fifth and a solo homer in the seventh.

Yakult lefty Masanori Ishikawa (9-9) allowed four runs on four hits – all home runs – in seven innings of work. Kentaro Kuwahara (3-5) took the loss.

Giants 6, Tigers 1

At Koshien Stadium, Noriyoshi Omichi hit a pinch-hit, three-run double to open up a one-run game in the eighth inning as Yomiuri downed Hanshin for its sixth win in seven games.

Omichi’s double off Jeff Williams (4-4) came moments after Shinnosuke Abe drew a bases-loaded walk to put Yomiuri ahead 2-1. Tetsuya Yamaguchi (8-2) got the win in relief.

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Tags: Japan