Hawks Without Talons, Lose First 2 Games to B's

When it comes to consistency, there are a few things the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks do right. For one, they have a hard time scoring runs, and for another, something always seems to go wrong with the pitching, as evidenced by the Hawks' 3-9 record since their 5-0 start.

In the first game of this 3-game set against the Orix Buffaloes at Yahoo! Dome, the Hawks sent Nagisa Arakaki to the mound to try and bounce back after losing a weekend series to the Chiba Lotte Marines. After all, what better team to bounce back against than the Buffaloes, right?

Arakaki answered the bell fairly well, at least until the 8th inning. Before then, the Hawks offense seemed to wake up in the 2nd, when light-hitting 3rd baseman Nobuhiro Matsuda clubbed a 2-run home run to give SoftBank a 2-1 lead. However, Arakaki couldn't pitch with the lead, and surrendered 2 runs to Orix, courtesy of a double by Alex Cabrera.

The Hawks tied the game in the 4th with a trio of singles from Matsunaka, Hiroki Kokubo, and Shibahara.

However, the theme of SoftBank losing the game in the late innings continued as Arakaki imploded in the Buff's 5-run eighth inning. It started innocently enough with Katsuaki Furuki rapping a single to center, and Abe sacrificing Furuki to 2nd, but then it all fell apart as Tomotaka Sakaguchi hit a triple to center, and former Hawk Arihito Muramatsu followed it up with a double of his own. After getting the 2nd out of the inning, Arakaki's day was done. In 7 and 2/3 innings, he gave up 6 runs on 12 hits (4 earned), walked four and struck out nine over 144 pitches.

Koji Mise came in to try and stem the tide, but when the tide has Tuffy Rhodes' bat in it, trouble is on the horizon. By trouble, I mean a towering solo shot to dead center field. Yanase tried his hand to get the job done, but it also wasn't to be, as Alex Cabrera pounded a solo blast of his own to right field.

The Rhodes-Cabrera fireworks display was how the game ended, with Orix on top, 8-3. Kazuo Yamaguchi got the win, while Arakaki took the loss.

The second game was more exciting, but the result was still not what Hawks fans were looking for. Kenji Ohtonari was given the ball in hopes of being the stopper, but instead the young lefthander put forth his worst performance of the year thus far.

Alex Cabrera picked up where he left off the previous day by hitting his 2nd home run in as many days to give Orix a quick 1-0 lead in the 2nd. Softbank answered in the bottom of the 3rd when Hidenori Tanoue--only batting .170 on the year so far--hit a home run of his own to tie the game at 1. However, that would be the only run that Orix starter Satoshi Komatsu would allow in his first professional start over five innings.

When I talked about consistency with the Hawks earlier, I forgot to mention something: the disturbing trend that one inning always seems to kill the Hawks, and the top of the 4th was that inning today. Ohtonari developed an allergy to the strike zone as he walked Greg LaRocca, Cabrera, and Hamanaka. Yuichiro Mukae scored 2 with a single, then a squeeze attempt by Ohbiki scored another. Despite this, Ohtonari gave the bullpen a much-needed rest as he gutted his way through eight innings, giving up 3 hits, walking 4 and striking out 7 to go with the four runs.

If things go as they have, Rick Guttormson will take the mound for the Hawks game tomorrow against the Buffaloes in the final game of this 3-game set. After this series is a weekend series against the Saitama Seibu Lions.