Cuban Despaigne hits his fourth home run at NPB, the rest with ups and downs

HAVANA, Cuba, Sep 20 (ACN) Cuban Alfredo Despaigne hit his fourth home run of the season Monday, and was a key player in the 5-4 victory of the SoftBank Falcons over the Rakuten Eagles, in the Pacific League of Japanese professional baseball.

Visiting the Seimei Stadium in Sendai, the Cuban slugger hit a hard shot off stellar right-handed pitcher Masahiro Tanaka in the beginning of the fourth inning with a runner on, to bring the Falcons, who were trailing 0-3 at the time, closer on the scoreboard.

Despaigne, who also hit a single in two other innings and received a pair of tickets, scored his fourth consecutive game with two or more hits, raised his average to 247 and his total of runs batted in to 19.

In that match, his compatriot and teammate, left-hander LivAn Moinelo, allowed a scoreless hit in one inning of relief to reduce his effectiveness to 0.36.

For Rakuten, outfielder Rusney Castillo, went 3-0 today to lower his average to 220.

Meanwhile, at Yokohama Stadium, the Chunichi Dragons fell 0-6 to the DeNA All-Stars, where Cuban Dayan Viciedo was 4-1, with a single and a strikeout, to lower his average to 281, while Ariel Martinez failed in a relief appearance to lower his average to 231.

And in the remaining game of the day, shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria failed in four at-bats, including two via strikeout, in the Lotte Marinos' 1-0 win over the Nippon Ham Fighters at the Sapporo Dome. His average fell to 180.