The runners-up in a fairly competitive Central League pennant race meet in the first-round of the postseason, looking to earn the right to move on and face the pennant-winning Yomiuri Giants in the Final Stage. The Hanshin Tigers (74-63-6) and the Yokohama DeNA BayStars (71-69-3) essentially split their regular-season series, with Hanshin winning thirteen of the twenty-four meetings, but now the season was on the line in a three-game series to be played at historic Koshien Stadium just west of Osaka.
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| Koshien Stadium |
Although they had no way of knowing this at such an early juncture, the Tigers' defense let them down in what would prove to be a critical fashion in the early innings. Leading off the 3rd inning of a scoreless game, Keito Mori hit a bouncing ball to third base which Teruaki Sato could not field cleanly and the BayStars took advantage. Hikaru Itoh singled, Azumi sacrificed the runners to second and third, and Kouki Kajiwara then drove a ball into the right-center field gap for two bases and two runs that got the scoring underway. The BayStars would only get on hit over the next 5.1 innings, but the Hanshin offense was having a similarly challenging time in figuring out Azuma. They got two men aboard in the 1st, and one to second with one out in the 5th, but could not make a mark on the scorecard until Koji Chikamoto started the home 6th with a deep fly ball into the RF seats that cut the visitors' lead in half. Azuma survived a high-pressure moment - of his own making - when he walked two men in a row with two outs in the 7th, but manager Daisuke Miura stuck with his thirteen-game winner and was rewarded when pinch-hitter Ryo Watanabe grounded out to third to end the inning. The BayStars would then look to lean on their bullpen - Hiromu Ise gave up a one-out single in the 8th but erased that on a double-play ball by Shota Morishita, and Kohei Morihara pitched a perfect 9th, fanning the final two Tigers, to preserve the win and the Series lead. BayStars 2-4-0, Tigers 1-5-1. [scoresheet]
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| Kouki Kajiwara struck the key two-run double |
A sellout crowd of 42.646 filled Koshien to see their Tigers fight to keep the defense of their 2023 Japan Series title alive. The hurlers again had their way in the early going, with neither team able to do much in the first three innings; the Tigers came closest, disappointing the crowd when Yusuke Ohyama could only ground routinely to short with two men on and two out in 3rd. When The Stars came up to bat in the 4th, however, things livened up - with one out, Keita Sano doubled and moved to third on Tyler Austin's base hit. Toshiro Miyazaki followed with a single to right that scored Sano and moved Austin to second, and Masayuki Kuwahara lined a hit to left (the fourth in a row for the visitors) that loaded the bases. With the corners pulled in, Mori rolled one to second base that the Tigers could only turn into a force at second, scoring another, and Yasutaka Tobushira capped the big inning with a single to right field that brought Miyazaki across for a 3-0 Stars lead. Hanshin were now faced with the chore of making up the lost ground against Jackson, and were making no headway. The former Dodger and Pirate retired twelve of thirteen at one stretch, and pitched around a Seiya Kinami leadoff double in the 5th and a two-out walk to pinch-hitter Watanabe in the 7th. Again Miura handed the ball off to the back end of the BayStars bullpen and, again, Hanshin were powerless to resist. Six men came up to face Yuya Sakamoto and Morihara, and six men went down without reaching base. The BayStars had improved upon their First Stage defeat a year ago, and were headed to the Tokyo Dome to face down the Giants for a place in the Japan Series. BayStars 3-9-1, Tigers 0-3-0. [scoresheet]
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| Toshiro Miyazaki had three hits and the game-winning RBI |
The Tigers could muster only 8 hits in 59 at-bats (.136) over the two games, while striking out eighteen times, and failed to get two hits in the same inning even once. While the BayStars didn't belt the cover off of the ball either, they managed to bunch seven of their thirteen total hits in the two innings that decided the Series. Miyazaki led all hitters with three hits, and Kajiwara with two RBI.
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