Hisanori Yasuda hit a walk-off double in the 10th inning as the Chiba Lotte Marines advanced to the final stage of the Pacific League Climax Series playoffs with a dramatic 4-3 come-from-behind victory over the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks on Monday.
Lotte won the best-of-three first stage against SoftBank, two games to one. Before Yasuda’s two-out double scored Hiromi Oka from first base, Yudai Fujioka tied the game at 3-all with a three-run homer at Zozo Marine Stadium in Chiba.
Fujioka hit only one home run in 380 plate appearances in the 2023 regular season.
“Two of my teammates got on base for me in that situation, and I was ready to swing the bat aggressively,” the 30-year-old shortstop said. “We’ll do our best to come back to play here (for the Japan Series).”
The third-place Hawks pushed the second-place Marines to the brink of postseason elimination by taking a 3-0 lead in the top of the 10th on three consecutive RBI hits.
The game’s two left-handed starters set the tone in a nail-biting contest, with Lotte’s Kazuya Ojima pitching 6⅓ innings and SoftBank’s veteran Tsuyoshi Wada going five innings.
The Marines will face the first-place Orix Buffaloes in the best-of-seven final stage beginning Wednesday at Kyocera Dome Osaka.