SoftBank to face

In an astonishing turn of events, the Chiba Lotte Marines, left for dead at various points in the season, put on their hitting shoes late in both games, and they came back against the Seibu relief corps.

With a solid eight-inning performance from Hideaki Wakui, the Lions seemed primed to take a 1-0 series lead. However, Brian Sikorski coughed up the 5-1 lead that his offense had given him in the 9th inning as he could only get through one-third of an inning. The main blows were a two-run single by Kim Tae-Kyun, and the tying two-run single came off the bat of Tomoya Satozaki.

Tatsuya Uchi and some poor defense put the Marines in the 5-1 hole in the previous half-inning, as with the bases loaded, Hiroyuki Ohshima hit a two run single, and a bad throw from Saburo allowed a third run to come across, and a forced throw from Satozaki got Ohshima to third. He came in to score on an RBI single from Kuriyama.

The winning run came off the bat of Kazuya Fukuura in the 11th, taking Yoshihiro Doi (0-1) deep (1), as he was brought in for the lefty-on-lefty matchup. Hiroyuki Kobayashi got the win (1-0) with two solid innings of relief.

In game 2, the Lions once again got off to a fast start, scoring three runs in the home half of the first off Lotte starter Bill Murphy. Takeya "okawari-kun" Nakamura singled home Masahiro Abe, and Dee Brown followed it up with a two-run single of his own.

Murphy was chased after just three innings as he gave up a fourth run on a sacrifice fly. He left, trailing 4-1, the lone Lotte run he was given coming off the bat of 2005 Japan Series MVP, Toshiaki Imae (1).

However, the Miracle Marines lived up to their name as they came back against Takayuki Kishi. Two long-time Marines who were on the team in 2005 contributed to the comeback, as Saburo hit an RBI double in the 6th and Satozaki hit an RBI single of his own in the 7th.

Still down 4-3 in the bottom of the 9th inning, 2004's Japan Series MVP Shuichiro Osada came in to slam the door, but the only slamming that was done was Satozaki's second RBI of the day, taking him deep to tie the game at four.

All it would take on either side was just one run, and like the previous day, the Marines did it in the 11th inning, this time off Chikara Onodera. This time, it was Tadahito Iguchi doing the honors, as he singled home pinch-runner Yoshifumi Okada. Again, it was Kobayashi doing the honors closing, as he shut down the Lions in the 11th (1).

With the two-game sweep, the Marines move on to face the SoftBank Hawks in the Second Stage of the Pacific League Climax Series.

Since they were the PL regular season champions, the Hawks will start the series with a 1-0 series lead, and all games will take place at Yahoo! Dome. The series begins on October 14th, and of course the winner will represent the PL in the 2010 Japan Series.