What the hell?

The Hawks were just one win away from clinching their first championship title in eight years, but the Dragons dug deep in their energy reserves to force a Game 7

Things sound cooler when they're more Ichiro-like.

Softbank Hawks came back to win Game 7, 3-0.

A few notes on game 6:

1. This was the fourth 2-1 final score of the series, which is appropriate in NPB's year of the dead ball era.

2. "Masahiro Araki got the game off to a promising start with a leadoff single in the first inning and moved to second on Hirokazu Ibata's sacrifice bunt." Speaking of the dead ball era, the first inning sacrifice bunt is alive and well in NPB.

3. "Pinch-hitter Alex Cabrera then singled and Yoshimi was pulled for all-time saves leader Hitoki Iwase, who recorded the final out of the inning when pinch-runner Shuhei Fukuda was called out trying to steal second base." Now a part-time player, Alex Cabrera has had one heck of a career in Japan. He's hit 356 homers over 11 seasons, including tying Sahaharu Oh's record of 55 in one season in 2002.

4. "Iwase returned for the ninth and got the first two outs before Ochiai let Takuya Asao finish off to post the save." Iwase is Japan's all-time save leader. He had 37 this year, second in NPB. Yet in the ninth inning, he got the first two outs and was then pulled for his set-up man, who had 45 holds, to finish off the save. It's like pulling Mariano Rivera with two outs inthe ninth. How many MLB managers would do that in the World Series? Asao's stats this year are eye popping - 0.41 ERA in 87 innings, 57 hits, 15 BB, 100 K. Year of the pitcher indeed.

5. From Iwase's BR Bullpen page - "He picked his uniform number of 13 because it represents a deity of death in Tarot." Now that's intimidating...

Yoshimi battles the yellow Hawks.

Thanks JoeHova. I was just going to say how this demanded a Flaming Lips reference.

Am I the only one who thought, "What? They're still playing in Japan?"

How come these games aren't shown in the US? You'd think MLB Net would be interested...

I was just gonna say i wish these were on mlb network. They show the Caribbean series sometimes.

Am I the only one who thought, "What? They're still playing in Japan?"

Because of the damage caused by the earthquake last March, the start of the Japanese baseball season was delayed, meaning that the playoffs started much later than in a normal season.