HIROSHIMA (Interstat) — The Hiroshima Carp defeated the Chunichi Dragons 7-3 on Friday evening at Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium before 28,127 fans. The game lasted 3 hours, 50 minutes.

Hiroshima scored single runs in the third and fifth innings before breaking the game open with four runs in the seventh. Chunichi answered with a run in the sixth on a sacrifice fly by Toshiki Abe, then tied the game briefly in the eighth on a two-run homer by Ryuku Tsuchida. Hiroshima regained the lead in the bottom of the eighth on a solo homer by Shoichi Futamata.

Shun Okamoto (1-1) earned the win, allowing one earned run over 5 1/3 innings with four strikeouts. Yuya Yanagi (1-1) took the loss, giving up two earned runs in five innings. The Carp had nine hits, the Dragons eight. Hiroshima made two sacrifice hits.

The Dragons fell to 8-20, while the Carp improved to 10-15.