Ayumu Ishikawa of the Lotte Marines pitches against the Nippon Ham Fighters on Oct.... The Marines pushed past the Orix Buffaloes on winning percentage,. 558 to. 556.... Ishikawa( 6-3) allowed four hits but no walks, and left with a 3-0 lead after a Tatsuhiro Tamura RBI double in the fifth, a Hiromi Oka RBI single in the sixth, and Brandon Laird's 28th home run in the eighth....

Takashi Ogino of the Lotte Marines watches as his ninth-inning single gets through the infield to score the winning run in a 4-3 victory over the Nippon Ham Fighters at Chiba's Zozo Marine Stadium on Oct.... They trail the Orix Buffaloes by a half-game but have five games remaining compared to Orix's one.... " I don't have much experience to win it on a walk-off....

Orix Buffaloes manager Satoshi Nakajima, top, is tossed in the air by his players at Kyocera Dome Osaka after the team clinched the Pacific League baseball title on Oct.... The Buffaloes, whose regular season ended on Monday, watched the game from their home park, Kyocera Dome Osaka, and celebrated after the final out.... The Buffaloes' championship is the franchise's first since the Orix BlueWave won the league and Japan Series in 1996....

The Haishin Tigers' Masashi Ito pitches during a Central League game against the Hiroshima Carp on Oct.... Ito( 9-7) struck out five without issuing a walk in a 90-pitch effort at Koshien Stadium as the Tigers edged closer to the CL-leading Yakult Swallows, who they face from Tuesday in a two-game series.... Ito had a perfect first four innings before getting out of a one-out, two-on jam in the fifth....

Buffaloes above their pennant rivals Lotte Marines, who were clobbered 15-7 by the SoftBank Hawks

performance incentives.... But the Hawks failed to win back-to-back PL pennants and a fifth straight Japan

Japan Series pennants....

Kimiyasu Kudo( Photo courtesy of Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks) TOKYO( Kyodo)--SoftBank Hawks manager Kimiyasu Kudo, who guided the Pacific League club to five Japan Series titles in six years, plans to resign at the end of this season, a source familiar with the matter said Sunday.... The 58-year-old Kudo is on a two-year contract that expires at the end of the season, his seventh as skipper of the Fukuoka-based Hawks.... Kudo continued the Hawks' success as a Japanese baseball powerhouse that they

Yuma Mune of the Orix Buffaloes hits a two-run home run in the eighth inning of a Pacific League game against the Lotte Marines on Oct.... With one on and two out in the eighth inning and Orix trailing 2-0 at Kyocera Dome Osaka, Mune drilled the first pitch he saw from lefty Kazuya Ojima for his eighth home run.... Lotte opened the scoring in the fourth on Brandon Laird's 26th home run, off Orix lefty Daiki Tajima....

Oshima, from Oita Prefecture on Japan's southern island of Kyushu, had been blogging about his battle with cancer since revealing his diagnosis in a post in February 2017, while he continued to work as a baseball commentator.... He reached the 2, 000-hit milestone in his third of seven seasons with the Fighters, then based in Tokyo, prior to their 2004 relocation to Hokkaido.... Font Size S M L Print Timeline 0....