Hideto Asamura's three-run, fifth-inning home run lifted the Rakuten Eagles to an 8-1 come-from-behind victory over the Lotte Marines in the Pacific League on Sunday.

The Eagles completed their six-game series against the Marines at Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi with a 5-1 record. The visitors came to Sendai with an eight-game win streak that included a six-game sweep of the Orix Buffaloes before losing to Rakuten on Tuesday.

Right-hander Ryota Ishibashi (1-2) earned the win after limiting the Marines to a run on two hits and two walks over six innings.

With the game tied 1-1, Eigoro Mogi led off the bottom of the fifth with a single off Marines starter Manabu Mima. Jabari Blash also reached base on a single before Asamura blasted his seventh homer of the season to the left stands.

"My batting was useless in my first two at-bats, so I was focused on bringing the runners home," said Asamura, the Eagles' cleanup hitter.

The Marines opened the scoring in the first. Takashi Ogino doubled, advanced to third on a groundout and came home on an Ikuhiro Kiyota single. The Eagles tied the game in the bottom of the third after former Marines captain Daichi Suzuki singled and scored on Blash's one-out double.

Mima (1-1), who left Rakuten as a free agent over the winter, notched his 1,000th pro inning in the first when he allowed two hits and a walk but allowed no runs. He surrendered five runs, four earned, on nine hits and four walks, while fanning four over 5-2/3 innings.

The pro baseball season opened last month following a three-month delay due to the new coronavirus pandemic. Games are played behind closed doors with numerous countermeasures in place to prevent the spread of the virus.

Nippon Professional Baseball has said it plans to start accepting spectators from Friday, but Japan has recently seen a rise in the number of confirmed infections.

At Sapporo Dome, rookie Yuki Nomura broke a 3-3 tie with his second homer, a fourth-inning solo shot, as the Nippon Ham Fighters defeated the SoftBank Hawks 5-3.

In the Central League, former major leaguer Justin Bour blasted a third-inning grand slam and Yusuke Oyama hit a fifth-inning, two-run homer in the Hanshin Tigers' 8-3 win over the Hiroshima Carp.

==Kyodo

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