The Fukuoka SoftBank Haws captured the Japanese title by beating the Hanshin Tigers 4-1 in matches. In the championship title, the Hawks had to go deep as eleven innings were required in a game in which home field advantage did not help the Hanshin Tigers.
The Hawks had by far the best record in Japanese baseball, with a .626 winning percentage in the Pacific League. The Tigers posted a .612 winning percentage in the Central League.
After the Tigers won the first game of the Nippon Series 2-1, the Hawks came back with an emphatic 10-1 victory in game two. The next three games were much closer, all with one point difference (2-1, 3-2 and 3-2).
In game five, the Tigers had a 2–0 lead after five frames, but the Hawks bounced back in the eighth inning and tied the game at two on a two-run home run. With Daichi Ishii, who had not allowed a run in 50 consecutive regular-season games, on the mound, Yanagida Yuki hit the first pitch he saw, a fastball into the outside corner. It resulted in a two-run shot.
Neither team scored in the ninth inning, forcing extra innings. The team also scored in the tenth inning, but in the eleventh, SoftBank’s leadoff hitter, Isamu Nomura, hit a straight pitch to the outside corner with the score tied at 2-2. “All I could do was hang on to it,” Nomura said, as the ball narrowly cleared the right field fence for a game-winning home run (see photo below).
As tradition in Japanese baseball goes, SoftBank Hawks manager Hiroki Kobuko was abandoned by his team.
This Nippon Series victory is their twelfth and their first since winning it in 2020.
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