Hawks Struggles Continue, Drop Series to Rival Marines

On a quick side note here, my computer just went to the great scrap heap in the sky, so game reports will be a bit sporadic until I am able to buy a new one.

Even though it's still early, one has to wonder about the identity of this Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks team. After showing some moxie in the first week of the season with a handful of sayonara victories, the team seems to have fallen flat on all fronts. Seriously, I have no clue which team is going to show up on a day in-day out basis, and this is just looking at the box scores.

In the first game of this series, the Hawks once again lost it in the late innings, wasting a good combined effort from starter Toshiya Sugiuchi, Yuki Kume, and Koji Mise. CJ Nitkowski took the loss, giving up 3 hits and 2 earned runs (3 total) over 2/3 of an inning. The Marines scored 5 times in the 8th inning to give them a 6-3 win.

In game 2, Shota Ohba stopped the bleeding, and in a spectacular way. Bouncing back from his rough outing against the Seibu Lions, Ohba tossed a complete game 4-hit shutout, striking out an amazing 16 batters, walking none (132 pitches). Lotte ace Yoshihisa Naruse pitched good over 7 innings, scattering 7 hits and striking out 4, but walked 3 and gave up all 3 of SoftBank's runs. More good news came from the middle of the batting order, as Nobuhiko Matsunaka went 3-for-3 and drove in all 3 SoftBank runs.

Game 3 ended up being a heartbreaker for the Hawks, as Nitkowski took his second loss of the series, giving up a sayonara base hit to shortstop Tsuyoshi Nishioka. Once again, SoftBank looked good early against Lotte starter Shunsuke Watanabe. The bottom of the order did the damage in the 4th inning as Ide, Nakazawa, and even light-hitting catcher Yamazaki helped to score 2 runs in the 4th. Mitsuru Honma clubbed a home run in the 7th to spearhead the SoftBank scoring in that inning. However, the Marines Lucky 7 was better, as Ortiz, Takehara, Benny Agbayani, and Imae all rapped out hits to score 3 runs before the SoftBank bullpen melted down in the bottom of the 9th.

Good news was to be had from this game, though. Tsuyoshi Wada returned to the starting rotation and, while probably still not 100%, Wada did well in his 6 and 1/3 innings of work, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits, striking out 2 and walking 2 (86 pitches). Also, for the second straight game Matsunaka hit well in the middle of the SoftBank order, going 2-for-4 and raising his average to .286.