DeNA BayStars manager Daisuke Miura said Friday ahead of the Japan Series that his team has a big task ahead of them and he’s not content to just be “cannon fodder” against Pacific League champions the SoftBank Hawks. to compete.
The best-of-seven series begins on Saturday at DeNA’s Yokohama Stadium after the third-place Central League club won six of eight CL Climax Series road playoff games, marking their first win since losing to SoftBank earlier this year 2017 moves into the season finale.
Baseball stars from Yokohama want to keep momentum going
“We want to compete in the Climax Series with the momentum from winning,” said Miura, who pitched for the BayStars in 1998 when the team last won the title.
Each team led their league in scoring, but while the Hawks led the PL in pitching and defense, the BayStars led both leagues in errors and had the fifth-worst percentage in the six-team CL the runs allowed. However, the BayStars threw and defended well in the postseason.
“The Hawks excel in all areas of the game, as their numbers show,” Miura said. “And while I’m excited to bring another Japan Series to Yokohama Stadium, we’re not just here to play the games. We want to win.”
Hawks on guard for Jackson
Hawks manager Hiroki Kokubo said the BayStars are an unknown quantity and he will focus on preventing them from hitting extra bases.
“We only played three interleague games against them, and my lasting impression is that Tyler Austin, a player we pitched to cautiously, hit a game-winning three-run homer against us,” Kokubo said.
Although the Hawks reached the Japan Series in 2020, the team has won the last 12 series games in a row. The task of ending that streak on Saturday falls to right-hander Andre Jackson.
Jackson, a first-year import, posted an 8-7 record and a 2.90 ERA in the regular season. A key to this is that the BayStars are currently playing better at home than they have so far this year.
“I’m excited. We have a good team, they have a good team,” Jackson said. “Everyone starts over. We’ve been playing really good baseball the last few weeks and anything can happen.”
“We played better away from home this year. (At home) we have to bring the same momentum that we had away from home and not get comfortable.”
Facing him Saturday is Hawks ace Kohei Arihara, who has a 14-7 record and a 2.36 ERA this season.
“I’m grateful for this opportunity and all I can do is pitch as best as I can for every batter and do my part,” Arihara said.
The big question mark with the Hawks is the availability of their top run producer, left fielder Kensuke Kondo, who sprained his ankle late in the season and can hit but likely won’t return to the field.
