Nippon Professional Baseball’s postseason picked back up on Wednesday night with the opening games of the Climax Series Final Stage.

In the Pacific League, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks rallied past the Hokkaido Nipponham Fighters to extend their series lead to 3-0, including their two ghost wins. Meanwhile, the Yokohama DeNA BayStars shut out the Hanshin Tigers to even the Central League championship series at 1-1.

Hawks 6, Fighters 4

A five-run fourth inning helped the Hawks erase an early deficit and beat the Fighters 6-4, taking a commanding series lead.

Taisei Makihara put SoftBank ahead with an RBI single in the first, but Nipponham scored three runs against ace Livan Moinelo over the next two innings. Reo Shibata’s sacrifice fly broke a 1-1 tie in the third, and Tatsuki Mizuno followed with a bases-loaded walk.

Moinelo exited after just 2⅔ innings and 70 pitches, his shortest outing ever as a starter. Rookie Gota Suzuki entered to end the threat and went on to retire all four batters he faced.

The Fighters’ defense faltered in the fourth. Shibata’s errant throw home brought SoftBank within a run, and Yudai Shoji’s RBI single tied the game. Yuya Gunji then dropped a routine fly ball in left, allowing the go-ahead run to score. Ukyo Shuto’s sacrifice fly and Kensuke Kondoh’s RBI double extended the lead to 6-3.

Gunji cut the lead to two with a solo homer off Roberto Osuna in the seventh, and the Fighters got the tying run to the plate in the form of Chusei Mannami in the ninth, but Kazuki Sugiyama struck him out to end the game.

The Hawks are two wins away from the Japan Series, while the Fighters would need to win five of six.

BayStars 2, Tigers 0

The BayStars shut out the Tigers 2-0 at Koshien in what was effectively a must-win game to bring the series to one game apiece.

Toshiro Miyazaki hit an RBI single in the first inning following walks to Shugo Maki and Keita Sano, giving DeNA an early lead against Shoki Murakami. Sano added a solo home run in the sixth. Murakami surrendered just three hits and two runs over six innings and struck out five.

Kentaro Taira threw 5 ⅔ scoreless frames, striking out six and allowing three hits and two walks. Reliever Masaki Iwata stranded two runners by striking out pinch hitter Seiya Kinami to end the sixth, and Hiromu Ise escaped another threat in the seventh, striking out Shota Morishita with runners at the corners.

The key for the BayStars’ pitching staff was holding Teruaki Sato and Morishita hitless, as the star duo went a combined 0 for 7. Sato left the game after his eighth inning at-bat, during which he fouled a ball off his left knee.

Manager Kyuji Fujikawa said the substitution was unrelated to the foul ball, explaining that the CL Triple Crown winner had preexisting discomfort that worsened and that doctors were examining him.

The Tigers got a rally going in the ninth with back-to-back singles and a sacrifice bunt to put runners on second and third with one out. But Sean Reynolds induced a pop-up from Koji Chikamoto and got Takumu Nakano to bounce out to second on the first pitch to seal the shutout.

After sweeping the Yomiuri Giants in the CLCS First Stage, DeNA remain unbeaten this postseason and hope to carry that momentum forward, as they did during their Cinderella run to the Japan Series title in 2024.