TOKYO -- Tuffy Rhodes belted his 54th homer of the season Wednesday and Norihiro Nakamura drove in five runs as the Kintetsu Buffaloes trounced the Lotte Marines 8-3 at Osaka Dome.

Rhodes, formerly of the Houston Astros, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, connected for a solo shot in the first inning and is one homer shy of tying the Japanese record for the most home runs in a single season set by former Yomiuri Giants slugger Sadaharu Oh in 1964.

The last time a foreign player came this close to breaking Oh's record was in 1985, when Randy Bass of the Central League's Hanshin Tigers hit 54 homers.

Nakamura hit a two-run homer in the fourth inning and followed with a three-run blast in the eighth -- his 44th homer of the season -- to give Kintetsu an 8-1 lead. The Buffaloes have 12 games remaining in the season.

Kintetsu's win allowed the Buffaloes to move into a tie for first place with the Seibu Lions. The Hawks are a half game back.

At Tokyo Dome, Alex Cabrera, formerly of the Arizona Diamondbacks, drove in three runs with a pair of homers and former Tampa Bay Devil Ray Scott McClain added a solo blast to power the Seibu Lions to a 5-1 win over the Nippon Ham Fighters.

Reliever Shinji Mori (4-4) held Nippon Ham scoreless over the final four innings to pick up the win.

In Kobe, Ed Yarnall, a former New York Mets and New York Yankees farmhand, scattered seven hits over the distance while giving up one run -- a solo homer to Tadahito Iguchi in the ninth -- to lead the Orix BlueWave to a 3-1 victory over the Daiei Hawks.

In the Central League, Akira Eto belted a three-run homer in the top of the seventh to lift the Yomiuri Giants to a 7-4 victory over the Yokohama BayStars at Yokohama Stadium.

Takahiro Saeki and Takuro Ishii both homered in the bottom of the ninth but the rally fell short when Yomiuri reliever Junichi Kawahara got the final out to pick up his second save of the season.

Mitsuru Manaka drove in a pair of runs and the Yakult Swallows scored three runs in the top of the eighth inning en route to a 7-6 victory over the Hanshin Tigers at Koshien Stadium.

With the victory, the Swallows snapped a six-game losing streak and saw their magic number to clinch the Central League pennant cut to 15.

Leo Gomez, formerly of the Chicago Cubs, went 2-for-4 while driving in four runs to lead the Chunichi Dragons to an 8-5 victory over the Hiroshima Carp at Nagoya Dome.