The Lotte Marines edged the Orix Buffaloes 4-3 in 10 innings after their young flamethrower Roki Sasaki gave up three runs in seven innings of work Friday.
Sasaki had his season-opening scoreless streak snapped at 20 innings when Orix catcher Tomoya Mori delivered an RBI double down the right-field line in the bottom of the first at Kyocera Dome Osaka.
The 21-year-old right-hander allowed two more runs to score as Orix built a 3-0 lead in the fourth.
But Lotte answered back to tie the game at 3 in the fifth, and Koki Yamaguchi hit a sacrifice fly in the top of the 10th off Taisuke Kondo (0-1).
Kyota Fujiwara doubled in two runs in the fifth and drew a walk leading off the 10th before scoring on Yamaguchi's shallow fly ball to right.
"Roki was pitching hard, so we wanted to score runs for him," Fujiwara said. "I was surprised to see him touch 165 kilometers (102.5 miles) per hour with his fastball at times. He's inhuman. He finally gave up runs. I'm glad we were able to give him some run support today."
Sasaki struck out eight while allowing eight hits and walking one.
Former Boston Red Sox reliever Hirokazu Sawamura (2-0) worked a scoreless ninth. Naoya Masuda picked up his Pacific League-leading eighth save.
In other PL action, Yuki Yanagita hit a tiebreaking three-run homer in the top of the 10th as the SoftBank Hawks beat the Nippon Ham Fighters 6-3 and the Seibu Lions blanked the Rakuten Eagles 4-0.
In the Central League, Shota Imanaga, who started in the World Baseball Classic final against the United States in March, struck out 12 in seven innings as the DeNA BayStars beat the Chunichi Dragons 1-0 to extend their winning streak to five games.
The Hanshin Tigers shut out the Yakult Swallows 4-0 while the Yomiuri Giants downed the Hiroshima Carp 5-4.
