The Yokohama DeNA BayStars (71-69-3) look to turn their quick dispatch of the Hanshin Tigers in the First Stage into the momentum which they will need to overcome both the pennant-winning Yomiuri Giants (77-59-7) and the traditional Final Stage handicap - all series games to be played at the Tokyo Dome, and needing to win four times in six games against the Giants to advance to the Japan Series as the representative of the Central League.
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| Tokyo Dome hosts the Central League Finals |
It looked like a continuation of the First Stage series ,as neither club could mount a serious offensive threat in the early going. Kay walked a pair with only one away in the home 2nd, but neither Coco Montes nor Makoto Kadowaki could move the runners any close to home. Togo, meanwhile allowed just one baserunner over the first four innings before putting two on with two outs in the 5th before escaping by getting Kay to pop to shallow center. The Giants got the first two runners aboard in 5th, and Togo moved them ahead with a well-executed sacrifice, but Yoshihiru Maru grounded sharply to second with the infield pulled in and Daiki Masuda ended the threat with a two-hopper to short. Kay (six BB in 7 ip) walked two more in the 6th but wrapped those between whiffs of Kazuma Okamoto and Montes to douse the self-lit flames. The two starters departed in the 8th of a still-scoreless contest; the BayStars placed the leadoff hitter on base in both the 8th and 9th without payoff, and Yomiuri wasted a two-out double from Okamoto in the 8th to send the game into extra innings. The visitors had a leadoff walk to Keita Sano in the 10th, but Alberto Baldonado struck out a pair to strand him; Shugo Maki drew a free pass in the 11th before being erased trying to swipe second; and Tyler Austin walked to begin the 12th before three straight flyouts against Kyle Keller finished them off. The Giants, for their part, sent nine men to the dish in extras and failed to put a single one of them on base as Game One ended in a scoreless tie that leaves Yokohama with one less opportunity to accumulate the four wins they need and their margin for error having largely vanished. BayStars 0-3-0, Giants 0-2-0. [scoresheet]
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| Anthony Kay walks six, but only allows one hit in seven innings |
Five more innings of the Finals passed without a single man crossing the plate before DeNA finally broke the thick coating of scoring ice in the 6th. After a groundout, Sano singled to right and Austin followed with a deep drive into the left-field seats that scored the first two runs of the series and put Yokohama in front. Ohnuki was depositing more zeroes in the Giants' postseason account, allowing only three hits over his eight innings of work and working clear of his one real spot of bother by getting Louis Okoye and Raito Nakyama to ground out after Karu had pulled one for two bases with one out in the 3rd. In the 8th the BayStars' #3 and #4 hitters were at it again - Sano doubled off of Hiromasa Funabasawa with one away, and Austin followed with an RBI single over shortstop to make it a three-run lead for the visitors. After Ohnuki went through the Giants in order in the 8th, Kohei Morihara came on to toss a perfect 9th for his third save of the young postseason and the visitors had taken the first step. BayStars 3-7-0, Giants 0-3-2. [scoresheet]
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| Tyler Austin homers, drives in all three BayStars runs |
The Central League pennant winners were shut out in front of their home crowd for the third straight evening, and Maki homered to drive home the only two runs Yokohama would need to win as a result. Yomiuri looked as if they would get on the board quickly when they put runners on the corners with only one out in the bottom of the 1st, but Yoshino forced Okamoto to fly to shallow right and sent Ohshiro down swinging to end the inning. Austin was cut down at the plate on a fielder's choice in the top of the 2nd and Maki ran into an out attempting to steal in the 3rd as the game moved through the middle innings scoreless once again. Yoshino left after allowing a walk and a single to out men at first and third to start the home 6th, but Yuya Sakamoto maintained the pressure on the Giants - after surviving a line drive off Ohshiro's bat right at Austin at first, he got Nakayama to bounce to second and Maru was thrown out at home in desperate dash for the home team's first run of the series, and got Yukinori Kishida looking at a third strike to preserve the deadlock. Following a quiet 7th, Yokohama again found the late-inning long ball to grab the game by the horns. Tasuo Ebina grounded to third as a PH to start the inning, but Kouki Kajiwara scratched out a hit on a dribbler to Okamoto at third base before Maki launched a ball over the left-field fence for the first (and only) two runs of the game. With Morihara getting the day off, Hiromu Ise pitched around a one-out Naru single in the 8th, and JB Wendelken took the ball for the 9th. Two quick Giant outs followed before drama ensued - Kadowaki singled, PH Shunsuke Sasaki took four wide ones, and Hisayoshi Chono lined a base hit to center to load the bases and put the winning run on base. Manager Daisuke Miura's options were a little but tightened by the extra bullpen usage from Game One, and he decided to stick with Wendelken. Okoye stepped in a lifted a fly ball to right that left plenty of room for Kajiwara to make the catch that ended the game with Yomiuri again staring at an empty run column and now trailing in the series. BayStars 2-9-0, Giants 0-8-0. [scoresheet]
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| Shugo Maki belts the big fly that powers the BayStars to victory |
You could excuse the Tokyo Dome crowd for wondering what exactly was going on when their Giants came to the plate in the 7th inning, trailing by the score of 5-0 without having managed a single hit against Jackson, and having failed to score in every single one of the thirty-six previous innings of the series. Was some sort of bizarre noroi at work, destined to keep an infinite lid on the home team's ability to score? Okamoto drew a walk as the last strains of a rather muted Lucky 7 performance by the home fans faded away, but Elier Hernandez popped up weakly on the infield. Just when it looked as if the steam was going out of a 37th consecutive inning, the Giant bats suddenly sprung to life: Hayato Sakamoto doubled Okamoto to third, and Nakayama singled sharply to center to plate the first two Kyojin scores of the Final Stage. It was still a 5-2 deficit with two innings to go, but a cloud had been lifted and the sun began to shine brightly inside the Dome in the 8th. Yasuaki Yamasaki walked the first two Giants, and new pitcher Ise plunked Hernandez in the thigh to load the sacks with the potential tying runs and no one out. Sakamoto decided that the Giants would not bother with tie, however, ripping Ise's first pitch deep into the left-field night for a grand slam homer that turned the game upside down and put Yomiuri on top 6-5. But they weren't done - Nakyama singled, Toshiro Miyazaki kicked Yukinori Kishida's grounder, and light-hitting pinch-hitter Sasaki doubled down the RF line for an insurance run that Taisei Ota didn't need in the top of the 9th. After all of the angst and failure, the Giants had somehow put themselves in position to require only one win from the final two games to return to the Japan Series for the first time in four years. Giants 7-7-1, BayStars 5-9-1. [scoresheet]
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| Hayato Sakamoto's grand slam turned the game around for the Giants |
Facing two potential do-or-die days of baseball, the BayStars looked to return to their tried-and-true formula of this postseason - clutch hitting and tight pitching. A Miyazaki double-play grounder erased a leadoff walk in the 2nd and that proved costly when Yokohama followed with two singles, but the visitors took their chance in the following inning. Kajiwara drew a one-out walk off of Yamasaki, stole second, moved to third on Maki's lined single to left, and scored when Sano grounded a hit up the middle and through the infield. The Giants failed to convert a two-on one-out situation in the 4th when Hamaguchi induced a 6-4-3 twin killing off the bat of Hernandez, and found themselves looking up out of an even deeper hole after Masayuki Kuwahara and Mori laced back-to-back two-out doubles in the top of the 6th which brought a close to Yamasaki's evening. A leadoff Maru walk and steal in the 7th got the home crowd singing, but two strikeouts short-circuited the inning before the home team could cash in. The 8th, though, appeared as if it would be Yomiuri's game-altering inning for the second game in a row. Kishida reached to start the inning when Yuya Sakamoto couldn't clutch his comebacker, and the DeNA hurler then looked bothered in walking pinch-hitter Chono. Okoye laid down a bunt to move the tying runs into scoring position and, when Sakamoto failed to field this cleanly as well, the bases were full of Giants with no one out. A shaken Sakamoto left the game, and Wendelken came on in the most difficult of situations. He got a break when Kadowaki's line drive found Miyazaki's glove at third base, but the 31-year-old American right-hander caught Maru staring at a fastball on the outside corner and then sent Okamoto down swinging though a slider to finish off an unlikely escape worthy of Houdini. There would be no magic for the Giants in the 9th, either, as Morihara earned yet another playoff save despite Hayato Sakamoto's single. BayStars 2-10-2, Giants 0-3-0. [scoresheet]
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| Haruhiro Hamaguchi spins 6.1 innings of two-hit baseball |
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| Yoshihiro Maru's 3rd-inning home run proved to be the deciding blow of the CL Final Stage |
It was something of a statement about the shape of Nippon Professional Baseball in 2024 when one team could slug its way to a sub-.500 OPS over six games, scoring a total of nine runs in fifty-five innings, yet still win the series and a chance at Japan's professional championship. They earned the one-game advantage over 140 regular-season games, and the Game One stalemate turned out to be key as a result, but only because of the seven-run Game Four rally that may live long in Giants lore depending on the result of the season's final series in a week. [series stats]
In a series where almost no one with a bat covered themselves in glory (Tyler Austin and Hayato Sakamoto excepted) it was fitting that a pitcher take home the laurels Giants ace Shosei Togo pitched seven innings of shutout ball in Game One to help Yomiuri scratch a game off the schedule, and then throttled the BayStars on a single hit over seven innings of the series finale to finish with a 0.63 ERA and a 0.56 WHIP.
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