FUKUOKA, Japan (Interstat) — Takahisa Hayakawa pitched seven innings of three-hit ball and struck out nine as the Rakuten Golden Eagles defeated the SoftBank Hawks 7-0 on Sunday evening at Fukuoka Yahuoku! Dome.

Rakuten broke a scoreless tie in the seventh when Hikaru Ohta hit a sacrifice fly. The Golden Eagles added two runs in the eighth on Itsuki Murabayashi’s sacrifice fly and Daisuke Nakashima’s double. They blew the game open with four runs in the ninth, capped by Murabayashi’s two-out, three-run double.

Murabayashi finished 3 for 4 with four RBIs. Nakashima went 1 for 4 with an RBI. Rakuten had 10 hits; SoftBank managed five.

Hayakawa improved to 2-0. Shuto Ogata (0-2) took the loss, allowing one earned run on two hits in one inning. Yugo Maeda threw five scoreless innings for SoftBank.

The Golden Eagles snapped a three-game losing streak and improved to 13-16-1. The Hawks fell to 16-14-1. Attendance was 40,122, and the game lasted 2 hours, 54 minutes.