JAPAN – Lee Seung Yeop drove in a pair of runs and Alex Ramirez homered on a 3-for-4 night Wednesday as the Yomiuri Giants beat the Hanshin Tigers 3-1 to gain a one-game edge in the Central League pennant race after the final meeting of the season between the archrivals.

Lee’s two-run double in the third and Ramirez’s shot in the seventh provided the power the Giants needed to win their seventh straight against the Tigers, take sole possession of the league lead for the first time this season and have a magic number of two to clinch the pennant.

The Giants, who will face the Yokohama BayStars and the Yakult Swallows the next two days in two of their last three games of the season, can clinch their second straight league championship as early as on Friday. The Tigers will meet Yokohama on Friday following a one-day rest.

Tetsuya Utsumi (12-8) held Hanshin scoreless over five innings before tiring to give up a run on a single and three walks in the sixth. The left-hander issued six walks and struck out two in 5-2/3 innings of work.

Tetsuya Yamaguchi threw two innings of shutout relief and Marc Kroon picked up his 40th save with a perfect ninth. Yuya Ando (13-9) yielded two runs and seven hits in four innings in taking the loss.

Ramirez increased his home run tally to 43 to move into the league lead with Yokohama’s Shuichi Murata. He also singled in the first and reached on an infield hit in the second to help set up Lee’s double.

Yakult 4, Yokohama 1

At Jingu Stadium, Yoshiyuki Noguchi homered for the second straight night and rookie Yoshinori Sato pitched eight strong innings, leading Yakult over Yokohama for its third straight victory.

Noguchi hit his second homer of the season in the first inning and the Swallows extended the lead with a Ryohei Kawamoto RBI single in the second, a double-play grounder by Kazuhiro Hatakeyama in the third and a Kazuki Fukuchi run-scoring single in the eighth.

Sato (2-1) retired the first 17 batters he faced and held the BayStars to a run and two hits, including an eighth-inning homer by Yuki Yoshimura, before Lim Chang Yong worked the ninth to get his 200th career save between Japan and South Korea. Daisuke Miura (7-10) took the loss.

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Tags: Japan