Hawks Rally, Take Opening Day

Last year, the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles were a continual pest for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. On Opening Day at Fukuoka Dome, the demons from last year seemed to haunt Softbank for most of the game. Then, Hiroshi Shibahara played the role of exorcist.

Playing the role of pinch-hitter, Shibahara pulled a 2-strike changeup from Domingo Guzman (0-1) into the right-field stands for a dramatic sayonara 3-run home run to start Softbank on a good foot. The home run was set up on a great hustle play by center fielder Hitoshi Tamura and a double by DH Nobuhiko Matsunaka.

The starters for the game were Hisashi Iwakuma for Rakuten and Toshiya Sugiuchi for Softbank. Iwakuma went 7 innings with 1 run on 4 hits and 5 strikeouts (no walks). Sugiuchi survived early trouble to go 7.1 innings with 7 san-shin and giving up 3 runs on 8 hits.

The game started very rough for Softbank. Sugiuchi went through a rocky first inning, giving up a hit, a walk, and an error before Jose Fernandez roped a single to score Rakuten's first run of the season. Sugiuchi--who is being counted on as the team ace while Kazumi Saitoh and Tsuyoshi Wada are out with injuries--avoided too much trouble until the 4th inning when Koichi Isobe and Yosuke Takasu drove in 2 runs in the 4th.

Softbank was able to make it interesting in the 6th when super shortstop Munenori Kawasaki singled to right, then moved to third on pinch-hitter Yuichi Honda's base hit. Iwakuma then uncorked a wild pitch which scored Kawasaki to make it 3-1.

Softbank's next game is game 2 of this 3-game weekend series against Rakuten, and it is on Saturday. The projected starters are Nagisa Arakaki for Softbank and Masahiro "Ma-kun" Tanaka for Rakuten.

SOURCES: Japanball.com, Yahoo! Japan