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Lions Stop Early Bleeding but Hawks Can't

Discussion in the The SoftBank Source forum
Lions Stop Early Bleeding but Hawks Can't
The Saitama Seibu Lions and Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks renewed acquaintences at Fukuoka Dome, and the results were not pretty for SoftBank. Both Seibu starter Hoashi and SoftBank starter Sugiuchi had their troubles early on, but Seibu kept the offensive attack up to win 8-3.

The Seibu attack was led by GG Satoh, Hiroyuki Nakajima, and Yasayuki Kataoka, all of whom drove in 2 runs. Softbank could not muster any more offense after Seibu starter Kazuyuki Hoashi was lifted in the 4th for Koji Ohnuma, who went as long as Hoashi (3 and 1/3 innings). From there, Chikara Onodera and Tetsuya Iwasaki bridged the gap to Alex Graman, who recorded the save.

SoftBank starter Toshiya Sugiuchi gave up all eight Seibu runs before being lifted in the 7th for Yoshiaki Fujioka. DJ Houlton and Shinsuke Ogura also tossed scoreless innings, but by then the damage had been done.

The backbreaker for the Hawks was the 4th inning, when Nakamura tripled to begin the inning. After two quick outs after, it all fell apart for Sugiuchi. Akada walked, Kataoka and Kuriyama singled, and Nakajima doubled to clean the bases. Four runs were the result of the inning, as Sugiuchi's final line was 6 and 1/3 innings, 8 runs (all earned) on 10 hits, with an astonishing 12 strikeouts and two walks.

The Hawks will turn to Golden Rookie Shota Ohba to try and notch a win in game 2 of this weekend series. Ohba was rocked for 5 runs last time out against the Lions and Seibu Dome.
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