The Hanshin Tigers faithful were left stunned on Thursday night as the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks clinched the 2025 Japan Series in front of 41,606 fans at Koshien Stadium with a 3-2 extra-inning victory.
After Hanshin took the opener on the road, SoftBank responded emphatically, winning four straight games to capture their first championship since 2020 and 12th Nippon Professional Baseball title and the 14th in franchise history, including their pre-NPB titles before 1950. First baseman Hotaka Yamakawa was named series MVP after homering in Games 2, 3, and 4.
It was a remarkable turnaround for the Hawks, who sat at an NPB-worst 9-16-2 on May 1 after being plagued by early-season injuries. Hiroki Kokubo’s squad quickly regrouped and went on to finish with the best record in Japan during the regular season, though they nearly let a 3-0 lead slip away in the Pacific League Climax Series Final Stage against the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, losing three straight before narrowly advancing.
Riding that momentum, SoftBank bested the Central League pennant-winning Hanshin Tigers, who had swept the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in their own league championship, to reclaim the title as the top team in Japan. It also served as redemption for the powerhouse club, avenging last year’s 4-2 upset loss to the BayStars in the Japan Series. Game 5 appeared to be tilting in Hanshin’s favor for most of the night, as Seishiro Sakamoto opened the scoring with an RBI single in the second inning and Teruaki Sato added his fifth RBI of the series to make it 2-0.
Hawks starter Kohei Arihara worked 4 2/3 innings, allowing six hits and two runs, while Tigers soft-tosser Koutaro Ohtake was efficient through six scoreless frames on just 74 pitches, yielding three hits and striking out three. However, with one out and a runner on first in the eighth, veteran Yuki Yanagita delivered another signature clutch moment, sending a 93 mph fastball from Daichi Ishii into the left field stands for a game-tying two-run homer. Pitching for the third straight day, it marked the first runs Ishii had allowed since April 4 and the first home run he surrendered since July of 2023, a rare blemish in what has been one of the most remarkable stretches by a reliever in NPB history.
The game moved into extra innings, where rookie manager Kyuji Fujikawa called on ace Shoki Murakami for his first relief appearance of the season to keep them alive. But Isami Nomura led off the 11th with a 380-foot opposite-field homer, putting SoftBank on the verge of their eighth championship in the last 14 years. Sato drew a walk to open the bottom half of the inning, but Yuki Matsumoto held firm, retiring Yusuke Ohyama, Seiya Kinami, and Nozomu Takatera in order to shut the door, with the final out coming on a routine grounder to second base as the Hawks team stormed the mound in celebration.
The Tigers were ultimately unable to win a single game at home, though each was an agonizingly tight one-run contest. Game 3 featured a marquee showdown between the Pacific and Central League ERA champions, Livan Moinelo and Hiroto Saiki. Hanshin struck first on a Sato RBI double in the opening inning, but SoftBank’s ace quickly settled in, holding the Tigers to just four hits and one run over six innings.
Yamakawa tied the game with a solo home run off Saiki in the fourth, and Tatsuru Yanagimachi gave the Hawks the lead with an RBI triple in the sixth. From there, SoftBank’s three-headed dragon in the pen – Kouya Fujii, Yuki Matsumoto, and Kazuki Sugiyama – slammed the door to preserve the victory.
In Game 4, Yamakawa stayed red-hot, putting Fukuoka up in the second inning with a homer to dead center off southpaw Haruto Takahashi, his third in as many games, tying a Japan Series record. The Hawks chased Takahashi from the game in the fifth and added a run on a Yanagimachi sacrifice fly. Ryosuke Ohtsu completed five shutout innings with three strikeouts on just 59 pitches before handing the ball over to the super bullpen. In the sixth, Kensuke Kondoh, limited to pinch-hitting duties due to injury, delivered a crucial RBI single to extend the lead to three. Hanshin rallied for two runs against Matsumoto in the eighth to pull within one, but Sugiyama pitched a 1-2-3 ninth, earning his second save of the series.
Had Hanshin come out on top, it would have marked just their third championship in franchise history, following their breakthrough in 2023 that ended the infamous “Curse of the Colonel.” They were also seeking to clinch the Japan Series at home for the first time ever.
Photo: The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks won the 2025 Japan Series. (Photo Courtesy of the WBSC)
