One For The Ages

I had to do a quick post about today's game between the Marines and the Hawks.  If you haven't been following events, today was the third and deciding game of the First Stage of the Pacific League Climax Series.  The Marines had won Game One 8-2 on Saturday but the Hawks took Game Two yesterday by a score of 3-1.  Today's game remained scoreless through nine innings but Softbank pushed three runs across in the top of the tenth.  Three runs that looked like a billion given the lack of scoring so far.

But in the bottom of the tenth the Marines got their first two runners on base.  Up stepped Yudai Fujioka, who'd only hit one home run in 380-ish at bats in 121 games over the past two seasons.  So of course he did this:

Suddenly the score was tied and the Marines fans were delirious.  The Hawks retired the next two batters but then Hiromi Oka singled.  That brought Hisanori Yasuda to the plate.  Yasuda had started the game on the bench but had pinch hit for Michael Brosseau several innings earlier and remained in the game as the third baseman.  Yasuda proceeded to do this:

The Marines won the game 4-3 and won the series two games to one.  They'll play Orix in Osaka starting Wednesday to determine the Pacific League's representative in this year's Nippon Series.

I thought I'd share cards for the two heroes of the game for the Marines.  They were both taken by the Marines in consecutive rounds in the 2017 draft - Yasuda in the first round* and Fujioka in the second.  Here's their cards from the 2018 Epoch Pacific League Rookies set:

#34

#35

*Yasuda wasn't the Marines first first round pick in that year's draft.  They and six other teams had initially picked Kotaro Kiyomiya.  After the Fighters won the lottery for Kiyomiya, the Marines picked Yasuda.  The Tigers and Hawks also picked Yasuda but the Marines won the lottery for him.