Hawks spoil Carp's bid for sweep
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The Hawks offense happily obliged, as they exploded for a 6-run third inning. Everybody had a turn in the order, as the highlights of the inning included an RBI double from Honda after singles from Yamazaki and Kawasaki. Yamazaki was picked off second, but it opened the door for Kawasaki to steal second, and he scored on Honda's double, tying the score up at 1.
Jose Ortiz immediately followed the double up with a 2-run home run to give the Hawks a 3-1 lead. With a clean slate on the bases, Kokubo gave Hiroshima starter Toshiaki Aizawa more to sweat about with a single, and Tamura drew a walk, and Matsunaka singled home Kokubo for a 4-1 lead. That would be the end of the day for Aizawa, as Tomohiro Umetsu came in to kill the rally, but Aizawa was still responsible for Tamura and Matsunaka. Satoru Morimoto drew a walk to load the bases and Shuhei Fukuda doubled home Matsunaka and Tamura for a 6-1 advantage.
After the 6th, Wada was on cruise control for most of the game. He gave up a run in the third thanks to an Ishihara double and a Higashide RBI single. The Hawks lefty was in command of his pitches, and struck out 8 batters in the process. However, he started to tire in the 7th, when the Hawks starter was hit hard. Tomonori Maeda singled along with Yuichiro Makae, and Tetsuya Kokubo doubled home Maeda. Yoshiyuki Ishihara then doubled home both Maeda and Makae to pull the Carp to a 7-4 deficit.
However, the Hawks bullpen once again came through, as Kattoh, Falkenborg, and Mahara all shut down the Carp order to end the game.
Aizawa suffered the loss, as he only got through 2 and 1/3 innings, giving up 6 runs on 7 hits, with two walks and two strikeouts to go along with it.
The Hawks are now once again back to .500, and are tied for 6th in the Interleague competition at 4-4. They will return to action on the 23rd against the Yokohama BayStars.