It's been an interesting week of playoff baseball over the past week and I wasn't sure who all to write about this week. Despite the outstanding games from Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the NLCS, I decided to concentrate on the NPB players as I just wrote about those two last month. So while we wait to find out if the Nippon Series will be a rematch of the 1962 Series or the 1964 and 2014 Series, let's talk about a couple stars from last week...
The Hanshin Tigers clinched their berth as the Central League's representative in the Series on Friday behind an outstanding start by Haruto Takahashi. He took a no-hitter into the eighth inning while striking out seven Baystars. I have a soft spot for Takahashi as I've seen him pitch twice. The first time was in 2019 when he was coming back from an injury and beat the Giants at Koshien for his first win in over a year. The second time was last year when he was an ikusei pitcher on the Tigers' farm team in a game against the Kofu Hayate Venturers in Shizuoka. He'd had Tommy John surgery in 2022 and shoulder issues the following year so the Tigers had released him and resigned him to a development player contract after the 2023 season. He worked his way back to the 70 man roster in the middle of last season and has pitched pretty well in limited use for the Tigers since then.
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| 2021 BBM 1st Version #196 |
The CL Climax Series MVP was Shota Morishita, who batted .667 and had the game winning hits in the first two games, including a walk off home run in Game Two.
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| 2023 Epoch One #527 |
Over in the Pacific League, things have gotten a little interesting. The Hawks won the first two games which, combined with their one win advantage due to their first place finish, put them on the brink of returning to the Nippon Series. However, the Hawks have dropped the last three games, getting out-scored by the Fighters 22-4 over those games. The game tomorrow will determine the Pacific League representative for the Nippon Series.
The winning runs for the Hawks in Game Two were driven in courtesy of a three run home run off the bat of Yuki Yanagita. It was 'Gita's 10th Climax Series home run, putting him into a tie with Seiichi Uchikawa for the most ever.
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| 2024 Topps NPB #101 |
Should the Fighters beat the Hawks tomorrow, Franmil Reyes will likely win the Climax Series MVP award. Reyes has hit four home runs which ties the record for most home runs in any stage of the Climax Series history. The other players are Sho Nakata, Seiichi Uchikawa and Hideto Asamura.
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| 2024 BBM Fusion #07 |
It'll be interesting to see if either Yanagita or Reyes (or both!) hit tie-breaking home runs tomorrow.
(H/T to NPB Reddit for the home run trivia)
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