Daiei: Magic 30

Still in August, and the Pacific League magic number has lit up at 30 for Daiei. All they needed was to tie Kintetsu last night (August 17, 2003) to eliminate Kintetsu's ability to control their own destiny (winning all of their remaining 35 games while Daiei wins all but the 7 remaining against them will result in a .667 winning percentage for Daiei, .659 for Kintetsu). And a tie is how the game ended, 4-4 after 12 innings at Osaka Dome.

Kintetsu fought tooth and nail to prevent a Hawk win, though, scoring 2 in the bottom of the 8th on back to back home runs by Nakamura and Yoshioka with two down, then tying the score in the 9th on back to back two out RBI singles by Ohmura and Mizuguchi in the bottom of the 9th. But a tie wasn't good enough to keep the Hawks' magic number from lighting up.

While the race was still pretty even going into the All Star Break, Daiei has really been playing well this past month, taking a 5 game lead over Seibu (who dropped their first 6 after the All Star Break) and a 7.5 game lead over Kintetsu who have hit a wall recently.

It was asked on another thread if the Lions could still come back and win the pennant. That's looking less likely, and the only way to do so will be for them to turn things around against Daiei, to whom they've lost 13 while winning just 9 so far this season.