Another Heartbreaker Shoots Down Hawks

After yesterday's sayonara loss at the hands of the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, the Hawks were looking to rebound. They had their interim ace, Tsuyoshi Wada on the mound, and they were also facing Satoshi Nagai, a pitcher they were looking to get some revenge on him for the gem he spun the last time Nagai faced the Hawks.

It didn't happen. Nagai was brilliant over 7 innings, and even though he trailed at the end of his outing, he did get credit for the win, as his offense picked him up and the bullpen preserved the win.

SoftBank did get off to a good start, though. Again, SoftBank scored in the first inning, a trend that has been apparent throughout the first month of the season. Kawasaki singled his way on, sandwiched between strikeouts by Honda and Matsunaka. Kawasaki stole second, and then Kokubo, who has been seeing the ball well recently, singled home the speedy Kawasaki to give SoftBank a quick 1-0 lead.

In the third, Matsunaka led off the inning with a bang: one of his signature pull home runs to right field. The solo blast put SoftBank up 2-0, but the Hawks weren't quite done. After Kokubo walked and Hasegawa grounded out, Tanoue and Shibahara both singled to load the bases with 1 down. However, with a golden opportunity, the slumping Takaya and Morimoto both struck out as Nagai bore down and the threat was snuffed out. It would start a streak of 8 batters in a row that Nagai would retire.

On the other side, Tsuyoshi Wada was nothing short of brilliant for the first four innings. He allowed only one hit, a double, to Nao Watanabe, and that was to lead off the 4th. Even still, Wada carried a one-hitter into the 6th inning. He had retired 15 of 17 batters, but there was one problem: his pitch count was rising quickly.

Never one to be economical with his pitches, Wada was already showing signs of tiring as he went out for the 7th inning. Veteran slugger Takeshi Yamasaki took one of Wada's pitches and deposited it into the left-field bleachers to cut SoftBank's lead in half at 2-1.

Surprisingly, Akiyama-kantoku sent Wada back out again for the 8th inning. The decision would come back to haunt him, as Wada would surrender the tying and what proved to be the winning runs. Former batting champion Rick Short singled to start the inning, and he was bunted to 2nd by Teppei. Pinch-hitter extraordinare Takasu then came up and laced a single of his own to score Rick and tie up the game.

After the second out was recorded, Akiyama-kantoku then and decided he'd seen enough and took out Wada for Mizuta. Another pinch-hitter came up in Kusano, and he would put the dagger in the heart by singling home Takasu.

Arime and Marcus Gwyn both worked perfect outings to get the hold and the save, respectively. Arime worked 1 and 1/3 innings and struck out 2, and Gwyn struck out one in his 2/3 innings.

Nagai got the win to improve his record to 2-0 and lower his ERA to 2.47. Wada took the hard-luck loss, he falls to 1-2 with a 2.43 ERA. Home runs were from Matsunaka (6) and Yamasaki (3).

The Hawks have a tall task ahead of them tomorrow as they must face the reigning Sawamura Award winner, Hisashi Iwakuma (2-1, 1.89). SoftBank sends the walks-prone Nagisa Arakaki (0-0, 9.00) to counter.