Fukuoka – If the sight of Yuki Yanagita holding up his bat while taking a few steps toward first base didn’t tell the story, the sound that filled the stadium surely did.
The crack of Yanagita’s bat meeting the ball gave way to the immediate roar of the crowd to form a thunderous symphony of inevitability. No one, not the other Pacific League teams or the best the Central League could muster, was going to deny the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks this year.
Yanagita erased an early one-run deficit with a two-run home run in the first, Takuya Kai hit a two-run shot in the second and the Hawks captured their fourth straight Japan Series title by completing their second straight sweep of the Yomiuri Giants with a 4-1 win on Wednesday in front of a crowd of 19,679 at PayPay Dome in Fukuoka.
SoftBank claimed its seventh title since 2011 and did it with a sweep that was even more dominant than the last one.
The only time the Hawks trailed in the series was after Hayato Sakamoto gave the Giants a 1-0 lead with an RBI double in the first inning of Game 4. Yanagita’s blast in the bottom half wiped out that deficit.
The Hawks outscored the Giants 26-4 and were one out away from a combined no-hitter in Game 3. It was nearly as one-sided as the Chiba Lotte Marines’ famous 33-4 demolition of the Hanshin Tigers in 2005.
SoftBank has dominated the postseason for the past decade. The Hawks have won their last 12 Japan Series games and their last 16 home games in the Japan Series. They’re also currently on a 16-game postseason winning streak.
The Giants had been looking for their first Japan Series title since 2012, the last time any CL team won the crown.
Yomiuri made it interesting in the ninth against closer Yuito Mori, with Kazuma Okamoto drawing a walk and Hiroyuki Nakajima hitting a one-out single.
Mori struck out Shunta Tanaka for the second out and retired pinch hitter Yoshiyuki Kamei to secure the game, the series and the title.
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Source : Baseball – The Japan Times
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