YOKOHAMA - Yudai Shoji drove in two runs and steered the defending champion SoftBank Hawks to a 3-1 win in 11 innings over the DeNA BayStars in Game 1 of the Japan Series on Saturday.
The Hawks, who won their third straight Pacific League pennant this year, began their bid for revenge against the BayStars with a win at Yokohama Stadium after losing the 2024 Japan Series to the Central League club.
The BayStars, who won the Japan Series 4-2 that year despite finishing the regular season third, repeated the trick this year to reach the best-of-seven Japan Series after storming to six straight wins in the postseason Climax Series.
In a pitching duel, BayStars starter Yutaro Ishida held the Hawks to a run on seven hits and a walk over 6-2/3 innings, exiting after giving up a single and double to open the seventh before Shoji drove in the opening run on a groundout.
Hawks starter Naoyuki Uwasawa loaded the bases in the first but went on to throw seven shutout innings on six hits and a hit batsman, striking out four.
Reliever Yuki Matsumoto began the eighth by striking out his first two batters, but Shugo Maki, who erupted for four home runs in the Climax Series, went deep again for a solo shot to tie the game.
Shoji plated the crucial go-ahead run with two on in the 11th, doubling to left off BayStars sixth reliever Kosuke Baba, before the Hawks scored another run on a sacrifice fly by pinch-hitter Tatsuru Yanagimachi.
"It was an extremely good game of baseball from Game 1. It was tough, but Shoji did well to hit in the 11th," Hawks skipper Hiroki Kokubo said. "Limiting the strong BayStars offense to a run was the winning factor. We'll just think about getting three more wins."
