Actually, the python version has about 328 lines of code, while the scala version has about 216 lines of code. You should visit the Google project page and use something like cloc to analyze the files:
http://code.google.com/p/multi-language-bench/
I confess that I do not know a lot about Scala, but it looks like some of the functional aspects of the language allow for some savings in lines of code.
If I had the time right now, I doubt that it would be too difficult to shrink the python version a bit. Just taking a glance at it, I don't see a single list comprehension throughout their code. I am sure there are some other language features that could probably have been better leveraged as well.
Just out of curiosity, where did you get the 626 loc and the 297 loc from - I tried looking but I can't find it anywhere. Though that could just be a product of my lack of sleep right now.