Hawks Offense Stymied Again, Fighters Roll 6-0

What was a very hotly contested game turned ugly fast for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in the late innings. Despite a good performance from SoftBank starter Nagaisa Arakaki, Masaru Takeda was better, and the Hawks lost their 3rd straight game 6-0.

For the first six innings of the contest, both Arakaki and Takeda were solid. Then the 7th inning hit and Arakaki ran out of gas. Then Koji Mise and Michitaka Nishiyama could not stop the bleeding as Hisashi Takeda and Micheal Nakamura cleaned up for Nippon Ham as the Fighters pitchers combined on a 3-hitter.

Naoto Inada broke the scoreless drought in the 7th with an RBI single that plated Terrmel Sledge, but the backbreaker was catcher Shinji Takahashi's 2-run home run in the 8th inning. The 9th was also unkind to SoftBank and Nishiyama in particular as Kensuke Tanaka hit the 2nd Nippon Ham triple in as many innings (Atsunori Inaba was responsible for the other triple).

For SoftBank, the main concern is the offense, which is injury-riddled right now. The Hawks are missing Naoyuki Ohmura at the top of the order, and the only consistent hitters have been OF's Shotaro Ide and Hiroshi Shibahara. Nobuhiko Matsunaka is hitting only .189, and Hitoshi Tamura has cooled off since his hot start. Offense was a main concern of the team this offseason, and the fears seem to have come true the last few games.