Fighters, Lions Have Their Way With SoftBank, Hawks Still Clinging to 2nd

Going into two crucial series against the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and Saitama Seibu Lions, the Hawks needed to take at least 2 out of 3 from one of the two teams. If the season were to end today, the Hawks, Fighters, and Lions would be in the Pacific League playoffs, so these matchups could be harbingers of games to come.

The first series was against the Fighters, who have been even more of a bother to the Hawks than the Orix Buffaloes have been. The first game's matchup was between two long-struggling pitchers: Tomoya Yagi for the Fighters and Jason Standridge for the Hawks. Standridge got through 4 rocky innings, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits, walking 2 and striking out 3. CJ Nitkowski then came on but struggled, giving up 2 runs in 2/3 of an inning.

Yagi on the other hand, was making his first start of 2008 after spending most of his time at ni-gun for the past two seasons and was nothing short of spectacular over 5 and 2/3 innings. Yagi struck out four while scattering 7 hits and walking 1. The only run he gave up was on consecutive singles by Kokubo, Matsuda, and Ohmura.

Most of the Nippon Ham offense was provided in the 4th inning, when the Fighters scored 3 runs, two of them from Hawks tormentor Makoto Kaneko. Two more runs were plated in the 6th on three consecutive doubles by Botts, Itoi, and Kaneko. Final score: Fighters 5, Hawks 1.

Redemption came in the person of Kenji Ohtonari, who has assumed the stopper mantle while Sugiuchi and Wada have been in Beijing. Ohtonari put together another great outing, matching Fighters starter Masaru Takeda for 8 innings before giving way to Mahara in the 9th for his 6th save of the season. The only mistake Ohtonari made over his 8 innings of work was a solo home run by Jason Botts in the 5th that tied the game. Other than that, he was spectacular, striking out 9 and walking 1 while giving up 5 hits, proving that Ohtonari needs to keep the walks down to be successful.

Takeda was excellent himself, needing only 95 pitches to get through his 8 innings, but he was the hard luck loser, as the Hawks scratched across one run in the 3rd and one in the 6th for their only offense of the afternoon.

Mahara struck out 3 batters with a double mixed in during the 9th, but aside from that, no real doubts, showing that Mahara is healthy. The Hawks won this one, 2-1.

In the rubber match of the 3-game series, the Hawks were on the receiving end of a thumping, but this time Fighters started Brian Sweeney didn't need any help getting through the game. Through 9 innings and 151 pitches, Sweeney dominated the Hawks, walking 4 and striking out 3, while scattering 5 hits in the shutout.

Junji Hoshino, however, was somewhat ineffective. Over 2 and 1/3 innings, he gave up 2 runs, walked 3, hit one batter, but only gave up 2 hits. Maybe Oh-kantoku was a little hasty in relieving him? The good news was that the Hawks saw the return of veteran reliever Akio Mizuta, who put in 2 and 2/3 solid innings, surrendering 1 run on 2 hits, one of the runs coming on an Itoi solo blast.

Where the Hawks bullpen faltered was, again, on Nitkowski. He gave up 4 runs (3 earned) in 1/3 of an inning on 5 hits, effectively putting the game out of reach at a time when the game was still within the Hawks grasp. The final score was 7-0 in favor of the Fighters, putting the Hawks record at 6-13 for the season against Nippon Ham. That has to change because the Hawks will face Nippon Ham in the playoffs.

Next up were the Saitama Seibu Lions, a team that has been leading the Pacific League almost wire-to-wire this season. Seemingly still reeling from the bad loss to the Fighters the previous day, the Hawks were spanked again, this time by a more embarrassing score of 12-3.

The Hawks starter was DJ Houlton, who was very good as of late, but struggled. Putting a further strain on the bullpen, Houlton was only able to complete 3 and 2/3 innings, giving up 5 runs (3 earned) on 7 hits, walking 2 and striking out 2 in that span. From then on, nobody was effective in their appearances against the hard-hitting Lions.

Hideaki Takahashi gave up a run in the 5th on Craig Brazell's home run, Makoto Satoh gave up 3 in the 6th, and Junji Hoshino gave up 3 of his own in 2/3 innings of work in the 7th before the slumping Nitkowski of all people pitched 1 and 1/3 innings of perfect ball to stop the bleeding, but by then it was far too late.

The only offense the Hawks could muster was on a 3-run home run by Matsuda off of Hirano. The Lions starter, Kaz Ishii, was sparkling over 7 innings, giving up 4 hits, walking none, and striking out 8.

Nagisa Arakaki took the mound the next day against Lions veteran Fumiya Nishiguchi, but once again the Hawks bats failed to get a fire lit, and Arakaki was hurt by errors again. In all of Arakaki's starts this year, at least one error has been committed, and it always seems to rattle him. In this game, it was a 4th-inning error by Matsuda that led to a 4-run inning, but none of the runs the Lions scored were earned. Nagisa's final line was 6 innings, giving up 6 runs (2 earned) on as many hits, walking 4 and striking out 8.

Once again, it was the long ball that accounted for the Hawks only offense, as Nao Ohmura hit a bomb to right off of Nishiguchi for the only run the Hawks would get all day. Nishiguchi gave up 1 run in 6 innings, striking out 7 and walking 2 while scattering 6 hits. He picked up the win as the Lions rolled, 7-1.

Facing a sweep, the Hawks needed to get something going. SoftBank had only scored 7 runs in the past 5 games after score 16 in the last 2 games against the Chiba Lotte Marines the previous week. The bats finally came alive to salvage at least one game in the 3-game series and minimize the damage as Seibu was only able to gain 1 game on the Hawks instead of 3.

The always-interesting Jeremy Powell took the mound for the Hawks against Atsushi Okamoto. Not the most glamorous matchup, but Powell, while shaky, put the Hawks on top. Neither team wasted any time as the Hawks scored 3 runs in the first inning and the Lions countered with 2. SoftBank scored in each of the first 5 innings, chasing Okamoto after 2-plus innings.

Powell, after a bad first inning, persevered and came away with a shaky 6-inning outing, getting himself out of trouble and not walking anyone after the first inning. Despite giving up 5 runs in 6 innings, Shinohara, Mizuta, and Mahara all combined on 3 innings of 1-hit ball to help give the Hawks the win.

The Hawks go to Sendai to face the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles next after 2 days off. Kenji Ohtonari will take the mound against Hawks-killer Hisashi Iwakuma.