As the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) postseason progresses, here is a look at the top news and notes from the past day in Japan’s highest level of professional baseball.
Jackson deals, DeNA on the brink of championship.
After two games at home and two devastating losses, the DeNA BayStars championship aspirations had reached a clear nadir.
Three contests and three cathartic wins later, they’ve finally found a reprieve.
Behind Andre Jackson’s seven scoreless innings at Fukuoka’s Mizuho PayPay Dome and an impressive offensive performance, the BayStars won 7-0 in Game 5 over SoftBank, working the series to the brink with a 3-2 advantage.
This time of year, you are running on fumes anyway, so you just go out and do your best,” Jackson said to the Mainichi.
While Jackson — who was pitching on four days rest — was dealing, the BayStars’ offense was thriving, adding 13 hits and blitzing the Hawks’ pitching staff which used seven different arms. Tomohisa Ohzeki threw the majority of the arms for the Hawks, however, his bullpen struggled, with Jun Maeda and Yuki Tsumori being tagged for three runs apiece. SoftBank pitchers threw 116 total pitches to get through four innings.
The BayStars are the first team in Japan Series history with two non-Japanese pitchers recording wins.
Hawks making inauspicious history
The SoftBank Hawks have fallen down 3-2 in the Japan Series in a particularly painful way.
Three games after taking a commanding 2-0 series lead on the road, the Hawks completely fumbled home-field advantage, running into an angry BayStars team at the worst possible time. On the brink of elimination, the Hawks will need to turn things around quickly to save themselves from a historical collapse.
This is the first time since 2011 that the Hawks have lost three Japan Series, they’ve won seven championships in that span, the most recent in 2020.
The Hawks entered with 24.2 more WAR than the BayStars, another loss would lead to one of the biggest upsets of all time.
Pitching matchup set for game 6
Kohei Arihara, who slapped a two-run second-inning single and threw seven scoreless innings in the DeNA game 1 win will be turned to with his team’s season on the line. Shinichi Ohnuki who was effective all year with a 6-7 record and a 2.85 ERA, before struggling in his game 1 start will look to clinch the series for the BayStars.
Watch the NPB playoffs on DAZN.
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