Kuroda last pitched in Game 3 of the Japan Series on Tuesday against the Pacific League champion Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in Sapporo, getting Japan’s fastest pitcher, Shohei Otani, to fly out for the second out in the sixth inning before coming off due to cramp and stiffness to his legs with his team winning 2-1. From there, Sho Nakata drew a walk, reliever Anthony Bass drove in a run and Brandon Laird hit a grand slam. “There are two reasons, the first is his record along with the fact that we won the pennant this year,” said Matsuda. Look at us now, we’re Nippon champions, it feels great.”

The Fighters won their first Japan Series title since 2006, rebounding to win four straight games after dropping the first two in Hiroshima. Hideki Kuriyama lauded his team’s resilience after Nippon Ham clinched its third title in franchise history with a 10-4 win over the Hiroshima Carp in Game 6. “We were able to win all three games at home and the momentum was with us when we came back to Hiroshima.”

Bass threw two scoreless innings to earn the win in relief. During the regular season, the Fighters were down, but not out, in the Pacific League pennant race. The Fighters always believed the turning point was right around the corner, and four out of six times in this Japan Series it was. All of a sudden, the Fighters were up 10-4 and their hard work was six outs away from paying off. But we found a way to win, and it feels great.”

They won without calling on Shohei Otani again. Before the series, all the focus was on Otani, who had an 11-strikeout performance, though while allowing three runs, in Game 1 (his only appearance on the mound) and finished the series with four doubles among his six hits at the plate. The Carp went on to lose that game, and two more, to see Nippon Ham turn the series 3-2 heading into Games 6 on Saturday before the Fighters clinched it with a 10-4 win in Hiroshima, dashing the hopes of Kuroda’s showdown against Otani in Game 7. So when Nippon Ham faced adversity in the form of a Carp team that held a 2-0 lead in the Japan Series, and was looking as if it might snatch a third in Sapporo behind veteran pitcher Hiroki Kuroda, there was no panic. “We faced Kuroda after we took the consecutive losses (in Games 1 and 2), but I was thinking that our players would’ve gone in the game on pure spirit,” said Kuriyama. It’s just we got things going our way at the end. But more than the Japan Series title, one of our goals was for the fans to have fun with each game.”

Laird’s grand slam was his third home run of the series. The Nippon Ham infielder, who had a tiebreaking two-run homer in the eighth inning that helped win Game 4, drove in seven runs during the Japan Series. “So even though we became the best in Japan, we still have a long way to go. Nishikawa, Takuya Nakashima and Hiromi Oka each singled to load the bases against Carp reliever Jay Jackson with the score knotted at 4-4. “I said it when we won the league championship, we had such a tough season, but we didn’t give up, even though we had a huge deficit to overcome, and we made it all the way here, said Kuriyama. I was just fortunate enough to kind of have, if you want to say the hot hand, but it’s been a fun season. When the Fighters needed big hits at home, Nakata was there to deliver, and third-base coach Kazuyuki Shirai’s call to send Kensuke Tanaka home on Hiromi Oka’s shallow sacrifice fly to tie Game 5 in the seventh inning was among the most pivotal of the series. Those two hits came after game-tying hits by Sho Nakata.
In baseball, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters defeat the Hiroshima Toyo Carp to win the Japan Series.