Four-Run Fourth Shoots Down Hawks, SoftBank Now In 5th

The SoftBank Hawks' playoff chances are flashing before the team's eyes. This week has been a tale of two teams. Against the Eagles, the Hawks couldn't solve the Rakuten pitching staff, but the SoftBank pitching was good themselves. For the first game of this series, the Hawks' pitching could not cut the meat.

DJ Houlton has been solved by the Chiba Lotte Marines. After some spectacular pitching from him the first few appearances, Houlton has been tagged in his last two outings, both against Lotte. The Marines came in knowing what to expect, and they rocked Houlton for 7 runs on 7 hits to go along with 6 strikeouts, 1 hit batter, and 3 walks over 5 and 2/3 innings.

Yoshihisa Naruse, who was Houlton's opponent at this time last week, was almost as bad over 5 innings, giving up 4 runs (3 earned) on 7 hits, striking out one. Both teams were forced to leave it up to their bullpens, and once again the Hawks bullpen could not stop the bleeding. Koji Mise gave up a run in his inning of work, and Takayuki Shinohara also gave up a run himself in 1/3 of an inning. On the other side, Yusuke Kawasaki gave up 2 runs courtesy of a Hidenori Tanoue pinch-hit home run.

The Marines had two big innings that were the real back-breakers for SoftBank. The first big inning was the third inning, where they scored four runs, the first three coming on a three-run shot by Tasuku Hashimoto after Houlton hit Hayakawa and let up a single to Tsuyoshi Nishioka. This home run was immediately followed up by another jack by Ohmatsu, and those not only put the Marines in the lead, it doubled their advantage to 4-2, and the men from Chiba would not relinquish it.

The Marines would break out and put up another crooked number in the 6th, as Lotte would hit two more home runs, these courtesy of Saburo and Jose Ortiz. However, the Marines were not done yet. Houlton walked Hayakawa, then Nishioka slapped a double to left to bring Hayakawa around all the way from first. That would be the end of the day for Houlton as Koji Mise came in to get out of the inning. Lotte would add one run each in the 7th and 8th to put their final total at nine runs for the day.

The bright spots for the Hawks offensively was Hitoshi Tamura, who only seems to hit well at the beginning and end of the season when healthy. Tamura went 3-for-5 with a run scored and a timely 2-base hit in the 1st. SoftBank's big inning was in the 6th, when Matsunaka, Ohmura, and Matsuda all singled consecutively after Tamura reached on an error. Matsuda's hit pushed two runs across, and it tied the game before Lotte's 3-run 6th.

With this loss, the Hawks fall into 5th place, half a game behind Lotte for 4th place in the Pacific League, and 1 and 1/2 games behind Nippon Ham for the 3rd and final playoff spot. The Hawks send Tsuyoshi Wada to the mound against Hiroyuki Kobayashi.