Deja Vu All Over Again, Hawks & Lions Make History

How many times do you see this happen? For the first time since 1976, and only the second time in NPB history, two teams tied all three games of a 3-game series.

The game was contested between Takayuki Kishi for the Lions and Tsuyoshi Wada for the Hawks. Trouble found both in the first inning, as Wada gave up a single to Kataoka to begin the game, Kuriyama walked, and after Nakajima struck out, Craig Brazell was hit square in the back to load the bases. However, Olympic goat GG Satoh grounded into a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.

Kishi must've been taking notes, because he promptly did the same in his half of the first. After Honda led off with a groundout, Morimoto walked, and Matsunaka singled him to third. After a fielder's choice led to the second out, Kishi hit Matsuda on a 0-3 pitch to load the bases. Nao Ohmura came up with a chance of his own to get the Hawks on the board first, but he grounded out to end the first inning.

And so began a day of missed opportunities on both sides. Wada ran into more trouble as he gave up 2-out singles to Hosokawa and Tomoaki Satoh in the 2nd, but then bore down and got out of the jam. He gave up intermittent base hits, but did not get into any trouble until the 8th inning.

Kishi, on the other hand, kept on getting into trouble, and was just as effective getting out of it. The Hawks had 1st and 3rd situations in the 4th and 6th innings, and also had bases loaded situations in the 7th and 9th and failed to score on all of them. By the 8th inning, they had left 13 base runners.

Even though both pitchers' pitch counts were rising, both seemed to be tireless. Kishi, in 9 innings, threw 171 pitches, saving the spent Seibu bullpen, and gave up no runs on 6 hits, striking out 7, walking 4, and hitting one. Wada, for the second time this season, threw 145 pitches over 10 innings, also saving his team's bullpen, surrendering no runs on 9 hits, walking and hitting one batter each, and striking out 10.

For the third straight day, neither bullpen flinched. For the Lions, Alex Graman, Koji Mitsui, Tomoki Hoshino, and Chikara Onodera all contributed to three innings of one-hit ball. The Hawks sent Takayuki Shinohara, Akio Mizuta, and Makoto Satoh to pitch the remaining 2 innings.

The Hawks have today off, but return to work tomorrow against the team they have had the most trouble against this season, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.

This is an extremely important series for the Hawks, as they are 6-15 so far this season against the Fighters, and this will have major playoff implications, especially with the Orix Buffaloes now breathing down their necks in 3rd place. The Fighters will definitely be angry and looking for redemption, as they were swept by the Buffaloes this weekend.