I'm Back! Hawks Edge Giants 3-1

Well, it's been a very long time since I've written, but the good news is that the Hawks have been resurgent behind some good pitching, especially from the bullpen. With a good interleague record going into today, the first of two games at Yahoo! Dome against the Yomiuri Giants, the second time the Hawks have faced the Kyojin in this interleague season.

With Tsuyoshi Wada out, Justin Germano, one of SoftBank's off-season foreign acquisitions, has been called upon twice, and both times he has been very serviceable. The Giants countered with young lefty ace Tetsuya Utsumi.

The Hawks have been beneficiaries of not only great replacements from injuries, but also key players returning from injury. Young third baseman Nobuhiro Matsuda has been returning with a vengeance, as he clubbed his second home run of the season in the 5th inning off of Utsumi, a towering blast down the line in left to give SoftBank the lead for good at 2-1.

Before that, Germano was busy scattering hits, but he did not give up an extra-base hit the entire day. As a matter of fact, all of the Hawks pitchers that came to the mound did not surrender one extra-base hit for the game, nor did they walk any Yomiuri batters.

Germano did however give up one run in the 2nd inning, scattering 3 singles from Alex Ramirez, Shinnosuke Abe, and Furuki, with outs sandwiched between all three base hits.

Utsumi was also having success through the first three innings, as he held the Hawks hitless through out the first 3 and 1/3 innings. Two walks and an error accounted for all the offense that the Hawks could muster, but a key error from Furuki put the dangerous Munenori Kawasaki on first. Kawasaki then swiped second base and eventually scored on a single from Matsunaka to tie the game at 1.

Yomiuri always seemed to be one hit away from tying the game up, with 2 runners on against Germano in the 5th, but Germano bore down and got the next two batters to end the inning. In the 7th, Furuki reached on a single against Germano, and after Settsu came in to relieve the former, Suzuki singled his way on. However, Settsu showed why he's one of the best relievers in the PL right now, and he got Sakamoto and Matsumoto called out on strikes to end the threat.

In the 8th, the Hawks added an insurance run off Utsumi, who took the complete-game loss. Kawasaki doubled, and then Jose Ortiz followed that with a double of his own to double SoftBank's lead to 3-1.

Settsu, Falkenborg, and Mahara teamed up to slam the door shut on the powerful Giants offense. In an encouraging sign, Matsunaka was 2-for-3 with a walk, 2 singles, and a run batted in to raise his average to .283.

The Hawks get right back to work tomorrow against the Giants, looking to sweep the short 2-game series.