SENDAI (Interstat) — Rui Muneyama finished 3 for 3, homered twice and drove in four runs to lead the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles to a 5-1 victory over the Orix Buffaloes on Tuesday night, Sept. 1, at Kleenex Stadium Miyagi.

Muneyama opened the scoring with a three-run home run in the fifth inning, then added a solo shot in the seventh. Ryoto Kita hit a solo homer for Orix in the top of the eighth, but Rakuten answered with Kengo Horiuchi’s sacrifice fly in the bottom half.

Tatsuki Itoh (2-0) earned the win, allowing four hits and striking out eight over six scoreless innings. Allen Kuri (8-10) took the loss after yielding five hits and three earned runs in five innings. Orix managed eight hits to Rakuten’s seven.

Rakuten improved to 46-71-1, while Orix dropped to 57-62-2. The game took 3 hours, 25 minutes and drew an announced crowd of 10,032 at Kleenex Stadium Miyagi.