Hawks Again Give Fans Heart Attack, Win Lotte Series
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On March 24th, the Hawks chalked up their 3rd sayonara victory of the season, giving the maximum 12 innings. Catcher Hidenori Tanoue's 3rd RBI of the game ended up being the game-winning run. It wasn't easy, though. Lotte broke a 4-4 tie in the 10th with an RBI double by Jose Ortiz off of Rick Guttormson. Rookie Yuki Kume notched his 2nd win as the 6th pitcher out of the Softbank bullpen. Starting for Softbank was Nagisa Arakaki, giving up four runs on five hits in 4-2/3 innings while striking out eight. Shingo Ono started for Lotte, giving up 4 runs on 7 hits.
In the final game of this 3-game set, we found out one thing for certain: Softbank isn't going 144-0. The Hawks lost their first game of the season, once again in dramatic fashion, 5-4. Despite making a rally in the 6th inning, it wasn't enough against the Lotte bullpen. Keisuke Kattoh started and took the loss for Softbank, giving up all 5 Lotte runs on 10 hits in 6 innings. Home runs from Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Jose Ortiz spelled Softbank's doom as they could not pull another rabbit out of their hats. On the bright side for Softbank offensively, Hitoshi Tamura continued his early-season hot streak, going 3-for-4.