Honda, Ogura give Hawks another win

An on-again, off-again member of the ichi-gun roster the last few years, Shinsuke Ogura has had his cleats firmly planted in the bullpen. Today, he was called upon to make a spot start out of the bullpen, as the Hawks have had less-than-effective starters when their names aren't Sugiuchi or Wada.

Ogura (1-0) gave the Hawks five innings of one-run ball to notch their second win in a row against the Chiba Lotte Marines, 4-3. Key to the SoftBank effort once again were SBM, although Settsu sprung a leak in the 6th inning.

With the score 4-1 thanks to a four-run outburst by the Hawks in the previous inning, Ogura was in line for the win. Settsu took the mound to try and shut down the Marines, but they would not go quietly.

Seemingly par for the course with him this year, Settsu walked the first two batters he faced before getting Nishioka to line out. Takashi Ogino then beat out an infield single to load the bases. Iguchi, who has been fantastic against his former team this year, then rolled an infield single to score the Marines second run of the game. Tae-Gyun Kim then came up with a chance to break the game open, but all he could manage was a sacrifice fly. Settsu then got Ohmatsu to ground out harmlessly to end the inning.

From there, Falkenborg took the mound for two innings, and was one over the minimum six batters, recording a strikeout and giving up a hit. Takahiro Mahara slammed the door in the 9th while working around a hit for the save (5).

SoftBank would not have won if not for their crooked number in the 5th. Against pesky left-hander Yoshihisa Naruse, they finally broke through after being frustrated for most of the game thus far. Tamura led off the inning with a solo blast to tie the game. Lee followed with a walk, and Matsuda and Hasegawa both rapped out singles to load the bases. After a strikeout, Honda then cleaned the bases with a three-run triple.

Naruse (4-2) was otherwise great in his start. He went the distance, giving up four runs on eight hits, walking one and striking out seven.

The Hawks go for the sweep tomorrow when they give the nod to Kenji Ohtonari (1-2, 2.25) against Hidetaka Kawagoe (2-1. 6.75).