(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Yokohama avoids sweep in Japan Series with shutout against Fukuoka
Nederlands
 YOKOHAMA (Japan) -
Yokohama DeNA BayStars avoided a 4-game sweep against Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in the Nippon Series by winning Game 4 on Wednesday (November 1) with a 6-0 score.
Fukuoka now leads the Series, 3-1, and still needs one win to capture the title.
Game 5 will be played on Thursday.
Dutch pitcher Rick van den Hurk is the possible starter for Fukuoka in that game.
Fukuoka opened the best-of-seven on Saturday with a convincing 10-1 score.
The next two wins were much smaller.
On Sunday, the Hawks won 4-3, then on Tuesday, a 3-2 win followed.
At Yokohama Stadium, starting and winning pitcher Haruhiro Hamaguchi dominated for Yokohama.
He had a strong outing, striking out seven hitters in 7 2/3 inning, allowing only two basehits.
Fukuoka-starter Tsuyoshi Wada held Yokohama scoreless in the first four innings, allowing only two hitters to reach base.
The scoreless tie ended in the bottom of the fifth inning when Toshiro Miyazaki led of with a homerun off of starter Tsuyoshi Wada.
Hereafter, Takayuki Kajitani and Shuto Takajo both singled and advanced on a sacrifice bunt by (pitcher) Haruhiro Hamaguchi, who was batting eighth in the Yokohama line-up.
Kajitani then scored the next run on a sacrifice fly by Toshihiko Kuramoto.
The home team added another run in the seventh inning when catcher Shuto Takajo led off with a homerun off of reliever Ryota Igarashi to make it a 3-0 score.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Yokohama increased the lead to 6-0 by scoring three more runs off of new pitcher Tadashi Settsu, who was the fourth pitcher in this game for Fukuoka.
He gave up a lead-off double to José López, who moved on a grounder, then scored on a single by Toshiro Miyazaki.
Yokohama got runners on second and third base when Takayuki Kajitani doubled.
The two scored on a following single by Shuto Takajo, who was 3-for-4 and batted in three runs.
Fukuoka got into scoring position only two times.
In the top of the third inning, lead-off hitter Hiroaki Takaya was hit by a pitch.
He advanced to second base on a sacrifice bunt by Tsuyoshi Wada, but then was left behind.
The Yokohama-defense supported starting pitcher Haruhiro Hamaguchi with a double play in the fifth inning.
Fukuoka got its second (and last) runner in scoring position in the eighth inning.
With one out, pinch-hitter Shinya Tsuruoka doubled and with two outs, Yuki Yanagita singled.
That led to a pitching change, as Spencer Patton took over from Hamaguchi.
The American closed the at bat with a strikeout.
Yasuaki Yamasaki then closed the game by retiring the side in the top of the ninth inning.
(November 1)
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