Roki Sasaki of the Lotte Marines pitches in a Pacific League game against the Orix Buffaloes on Oct. 14, 2021, at Kyocera Dome Osaka in Osaka, western Japan. (Kyodo)

       OSAKA (Kyodo) -- Roki Sasaki struck out eight over six scoreless innings to outpitch fellow rookie Hiroya Miyagi and lead the Lotte Marines to a crucial 6-1 win over the Pacific League-leading Orix Buffaloes on Thursday.

       The win at Orix's Kyocera Dome Osaka moved second-place Lotte to within a half-game of the Buffaloes.

       Sasaki (3-2) took the mound in the bottom of the first with a three-run lead after Brandon Laird drove in the first run of the game for the third straight night.

       The Marines batters were able to get a lot of good swings against Miyagi (12-4), who surrendered a one-out first-inning single and a walk before doubles by Laird and Adeiny Hechavarria made it 3-0 Lotte.

       Sasaki was helped by some outstanding defense to hold Orix to five hits and a walk.

       "My control wasn't that good, so I tried to compensate for that by throwing harder," Sasaki said. "This was a game we couldn't afford to lose, so I'm glad I could shut our opponents down."

       Trailing 6-0 in the ninth, the Buffaloes scored a consolation run on Takahiro Okada's 16th home run.

       At Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi, pinch-hitter Keizo Kawashima's RBI triple snapped an eighth-inning tie and lifted the fourth-place SoftBank Hawks to a 6-5 win over the Rakuten Eagles.

       At Sapporo Dome, Takeya Nakamura homered twice and drove in all of the Seibu Lions' runs in a 3-0 win over the last-place Nippon Ham Fighters.

       At Tokyo Dome, back-to-back RBI doubles by Yutaro Itayama and Seiya Kinami broke a scoreless ninth-inning tie and lifted the Central League's second-place Hanshin Tigers to a 3-0 win over the third-place Yomiuri Giants. The Tigers trail the first-place Yakult Swallows by two games.

       At Vantelin Dome Nagoya, reserve catcher Iori Katsura tripled in a seventh-inning run to bring the Chunichi Dragons from behind in their 1-1 tie with the Swallows.

       At Mazda Stadium, Daichi Osera (9-5) allowed two runs over six innings as fourth-place Hiroshima Carp beat the DeNA BayStars 5-3 to move to within 4-1/2 games of third place and the CL's final playoff spot.

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