The Chiba Lotte Marines (71-66-6) have come from a third-place regular-season finish in the Pacific League to the championship finals, while the Yomiuri Giants (77-59-7) were the Central League pennant winners. Will the most storied club in Japanese baseball history add yet another title to their long list of laurels, or will the suddenly hot upstarts taste champagne for the first time in nearly fifteen years?
Lotte got their Japan Series appearance off to a snappy start when they strung together three 2nd-inning singles to take the lead, Atsuki Tomosugi delivering the run with two outs. Roki Sasak continued his postseason dominance by holding the Giants without a hit through the first four innings, but Elier Hernandez led off the home 5th with a double to break the string and create the first Giant pressure of the game. With one away, Raito Nakayama singled to right, but Hernandez had to hold up at third. Yukinori Kishida then tapped sharply back to the mound and Tomoyuki Sugano grounded into a force out to end the inning without reward and the Giants had let a rare opportunity against Sasaki go to waste. Sugano was doing his part on the mound to keep it close, but Sasaki whiffed four Giants i na row at one point, and the only two Yomiuri baserunners after the 5th were erased by Toshiya Satoh trying to steal second. The Marines failed to pad their lead after a leadoff hit in the 9th, and Naoya Masuda came on to pitch a 1-2-3 bottom half to earn his fourth save of the playoffs. Marines 1-9-0, Giants 0-3-0. [scoresheet]
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| Roki Sasaki pitches eight innings of three-hit ball with 10 strikeouts |
Yomiuri made noise in the bottom of the 1st when Yoshihiro Maru singled with two outs and Kazuma Okamoto drive on into the gap for a two-base hit; Maru couldn't score on the hit, however, and the Giants came up empty again when Ojima got Hernandez to chase a third strike. Neither team threatened again until the 4th, when the Giants got two on with one out, but Ojima again came up with the big pitch when he needed it, blowing a fastball past Nakayama with the opening run of the game waiting on third base. It was still quiet on the scoreboard and the basepaths when Yudai Fujioka stood in the lead off the 7th. He worked the count deep against Togo and then lifted a fly ball to right field that kept carrying until it had fallen two rows into the right-field seats, stunning the Tokyo Dome crowd and giving the Marines the lead. From here, it came unglued for the Central League club, as Lotte chased Togo with two one-out singles in the 8th, and Alberto Baldonado came on to allow another to load the bases, walked Hiromi Oka to force in a run, .and then gave up a two-run single to hero Fuijioka to make the score 4-0. The home team responded with two one-out singles in the bottom half, but the Giants came up small yet again in the clutch as Maru fanned looking and Okamoto skied to right. Masuda pitched another scoreless 9th inning, albeit not in a save situation, to put it away and give the Marines two road wins to start the Series. Marines 4-7-0, Giants 0-6-1. [scoresheet]
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| Yudai Fujioka drives in three of Lotte's four runs |
The Giants were desperate now and they broke yet another long scoreless string in the 3rd, Daiki Masuda doubling with one out and scoring on Maru's RBI single. The Marines got back-to-back singles to start their 4h, but Yamasaki struck out the dangerous Neftali Soto and then got a forceout and a fly ball to end the threat. Mercedes was meawhile making short work of the Giants, retiring fifteen of sixteen at one stretch, but Yamasaki was holding firm. Lotte again put the first two batters on base in the 6th, but the middle of the Marine order could only manage two fly balls and a forceout to let the Giant hurler off the hook again. Yamasaki walked PH Katsuya Kakunaka to start the 8th, ending his evening, and Fujioka followed with a base hit off of Hiromasa Funabasama to again put the home team in business. Oka hit a routine fly ball to center, though, and Soto followed with a tailor-made double-play ball to short that frustrated the Marines for the third time in five innings. In the top of the 9th, the Giants doubled their lead when Okamoto doubled across Coco Montes with two outs, and Taisei Ota pitched a perfect inning for the save that got Yomiuri back into the Series. Giants 2-7-0, Marines 0-5-0. [scoresheet]
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| Kazuma Okamoto went 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI |
The Giants, perhaps riding a bit of a bump from the previous evening, get on the board first again in Game Four. With two out and none aboard in the 3rd, Shogo Asano singles, Louis Okoye draws a walk and Makoto Kadowaki singles in the run, but this all that the visitors can do against Taneichi, who allows just three hits in eight innings of work. Lotte has only two in the first six against Griffin, but Soto leaves the park with two outs in the 7th for the third Marines hit and the game is tied. Satoh doubled to start the bottom of the 8th but was erased at third on an attempted sacrifice and the game entered extra innings, where Lotte again get a man to second and fail to score in the 10th. The Giants had watched twenty consecutive batters go out before Okoye singled and tole second with one out in the 11th, but Hirokazu Sawamura struck out Kadowaki and got Maru to ground out harmlessly to short. In the bottom of the frame, Kyoto Fujiwara drew a leadoff walk against Ota, but was forced out on Akiot Takabe's bunt. Takabe stole second, however, and moved to third when Fujioka grounded out to the right side of the infield. Oka then spun one off the handle of the bat down the third-base line which Hayato Sakamoto could only charge and attempt to play bare-handed; he failed to come up with it cleanly and Takabe sprinted across the plate with the winning run to put the Marines into a commanding position. Marines 2-7-0, Giants 1-4-0. [scoresheet]
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| Hiromi Oka's infield hit says sayonara to the Giants in the 11th |
It was all hands on deck for the Giants as they faced down the end of their season and, unfortunately for the Kyojin, they needed those extra hands much earlier than they hoped. Lotte jumped on Inoue in the 1st innings for three straight one-out singles to load the bases and, after a Gregory Polanco sacrifice fly opened the scoring, Inoue walked Satoh to reload them. Hisanori Yasuda grounded the next pitch up the middle for a two-run single to make it 3-0 and chase Inoue from the hill after only seven batters. Ryuta Heinai didn't fare much better, allowing three straight baserunners to start the 2nd, Takashi Ogino doubling one run and Fujioka singling home another for a five-run bulge. With the state of the Yomiuri offense, this appeared a Mount Fuji to climb, and so it was - the Giants got runners to scoring position in the 3rd and 5th but failed to score before they finally mustered some resistance against Nishino in the 6th. Okoye doubled to start the inning and, after the next two men went down, Okamoto stroked another two-bagger to get the Giants on the scoreboard, They loaded the bases on a single and a walk, but Shot Suzuki retired Sakamoto on a fly ball to right and the Marines' lead was still a comfortable one. From there, ten of the next eleven Giants were put out, save a two-out walk by Masuda to Sakamoto in the 9th, and PH Shunsuke Sasaki's fly ball to Ogino in left was the final out in a Cinderella championship for Lotte, their first since 2010. Marines 5-10-0, Giants 1-6-0. [scoresheet]
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| The Marines are NPB champions! |
The less said about the Giants' offense, the better, After a Climax Series where they hit only .160/.252/.216 and were outplayed by the BayStars, prevailing largely because of their series advantage as pennant winners, they somehow managed to swing the bats WORSE in the Japan Series. They "hit" .160/.194/.209 and scored a grand total of four runs in five games and, this time, were brushed aside fairly easily by the surprising Marines. In a performance that was meek even by NPB deadball era standards, the teams combined to strike out in 24% of their plate appearances and get thrown out stealing six times in ten attempts. [series stats]
Lotte 2B Yudai Fujioka was both the spark plug and the engine room for the Marines - with Soto and Polanco held in check in the middle of the order (4-for-37, 2 RBI), Fujioka led the Japan Series in hits and RBI while delivering the game-winning and game-sealing hits in Game Two.
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