FUKUOKA (Interstat) — Yuki Yanagita hit two home runs and drove in two runs as the SoftBank Hawks edged the visiting Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters 3-2 on Thursday night, Sept. 10, at Fukuoka Yahuoku! Dome. SoftBank scored once in each of the first three innings, while Nippon-Ham scored in the second and seventh. Yanagita homered twice, and Tomoya Masaki also homered. Nippon-Ham got a home run from Yuya Shintoh and an RBI single from Tatsuki Mizuno. The Fighters grounded into two double plays. Nippon-Ham had six hits, and SoftBank had seven. Haru Matsumoto earned the win, allowing one earned run on two hits with four walks and four strikeouts over five innings. He improved to 10-3. Takayuki Katoh took the loss after giving up three earned runs on seven hits over seven innings and dropped to 11-3. Kazuki Sugiyama struck out three in a perfect ninth for his 30th save. SoftBank improved to 78-46-3, while Nippon-Ham fell to 71-56-2. Attendance was 39,894 in a game that took 2 hours, 42 minutes.