Baseball: Fighters’ Hiromi Ito denies Hawks in 9-hit shutout

FUKUOKA (Kyodo) — Hiromi Ito pitched out of a few tough spots to throw a nine-hit shutout for the Nippon Ham Fighters in a 3-0 win over the Pacific League title-chasing SoftBank Hawks on Wednesday.

At Mizuho PayPay Dome, Ito (13-4) scattered nine hits while striking out nine and walking two in a 135-pitch effort that prevented the Hawks from lowering their magic number to clinch the league from five to three. Ito’s 13 wins are the most in the PL.

Ariel Martinez doubled and scored on a second-inning sacrifice fly off Hawks lefty Tomohisa Ozeki (8-4), who allowed a run over five innings to take the loss.

Kotaro Kiyomiya doubled and scored on Martinez’s sixth-inning RBI groundout before Franmil Reyes completed the scoring with a ninth-inning home run.

Among other games on Wednesday, the Rakuten Eagles whipped the Lotte Marines 8-1 to move past them into third place.

In the Central League, the first-place Yomiuri Giants tied the fourth-place DeNA BayStars 2-2. Yomiuri has a magic number of nine to clinch its first pennant in four years.

The defending champion Hanshin Tigers, meanwhile, clobbered the Chunichi Dragons 8-3 to move to within 1-1/2 games of the Giants in second place.