Baseball: Van den Hurk fans 13, Yanagita homers to lift Hawks atop PL

Rick van den Hurk struck out 13 over eight innings and Yuki Yanagita hit a two-run home run to help the SoftBank Hawks defeat the Orix Buffaloes 5-1 and lift their team to the top spot in the Pacific League on Wednesday.The Hawks took the lead in the league for the first time since July 8, replacing the Rakuten Eagles who lost their game.SoftBank scored first on a Yanagita sacrifice fly in the first inning, but Orix's Hiroyuki Nakajima got even in the bottom frame with a sacrifice fly of his own at Kyocera Dome Osaka.Nobuhiro Matsuda put the Hawks ahead with a solo homer in the fourth and H…READ FULL ARTICLE