Ken Marantz Daily Yomiuri Sportswriter

  FUKUOKA -- Leave it to a pair of Japan Series veterans to spark a team that had not played for a championship in 26 years. Kimiyasu Kudo tossed a six-hitter in a record-setting performance and Koji Akiyama homered as the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks won the opening game of the Japan Series on Saturday night, 3-0 over the Chunichi Dragons.
  Kudo, a two-time Japan Series MVP appearing in his record 12th series, set a series record for a nine-inning game with 13 strikeouts, breaking the old mark of 12 set in 1954 by Chunichi's Shigeru Sugishita and tied in 1997 by Yakult's Kazuhisa Ishii. Kudo's total, before a sellout crowd of 36,123, also equaled the 13-inning effort of Hiroshima's Yoshiro Sotokoba in 1975, and gave him the career record of 86 strikeouts, eclipsing by two the previous mark of former Nishitetsu Lions' great Kazuhisa Inao. Kudo is now 7-5 with three saves in 24 Japan Series games.
  "It was tough to get back into shape after having a month off," said Kudo, referring to the fact that the Hawks' season ended in early October. "But when I took the mound and got such a big applause, that gave me a lift to want to do well."
  Kudo, 11-7 and the PL leader with 196 strikeouts and a 2.38 earned run average this season, was aware of the record when he took the mound in the ninth inning, saying, "I had come this far, I knew I had to try for it." Kudo's 13th victim, Leo Gomez, praised the 36-year-old, who shut down the Dragons on 116 pitches with an effective split-finger fastball and sharp curveball.
"You have to give him credit, he pitched a great game," Gomez said. "When you pitch like he did today, you should win."
  Melvin Nieves delivered a two-run double for the Hawks, who won their first Pacific League pennant since 1973, when the team was owned by Nankai and based in Osaka.
  The Hawks, who scored all of their runs in the sixth inning, won despite being held to just four hits by three Chunichi pitchers in the 2-hour, 52-minute game. The Central League champion Dragons became the 11th victim of an opening-game shutout in the 50-year history of the series.
  For Kudo and Akiyama, winning on Japanese baseball's biggest stage is nothing new. The two were stars of the Seibu dynasty that won six of seven Japan Series titles from 1986-92. Now they are the heroes of this city of 1.3 million, which had not witnessed a Japan Series victory since the Nishitetsu Lions, now Seibu and located outside Tokyo, beat the Yomiuri Giants in Game 5 of the 1958 series at Heiwadai Stadium. Akiyama, one of only two players in Japan history with 400 home runs and 300 stolen bases, had one of each Saturday, but the homer provided the turning point in the game. Akiyama led off the bottom of the sixth inning by belting the first pitch, a belly-button high, fat slider from left-hander Shigeki Noguchi, into the left field stands for his 14th career series homer.
  "Kudo was pitching so well, I wanted to do something," Akiyama said. "Once we started getting runners on base, I thought the game might go our way."
  Earlier, Noguchi was the sharper of the two in a tense pitchers' duel before the seeming to unravel after a throwing error in the fourth inning. Two outs after Akiyama's homer, Noguchi issued consecutive walks to Hiroki Kokubo and Kenji Jojima--giving him five walks in two innings--and manager Senichi Hoshino brought in rookie left-hander Hitoki Iwase to face Nieves. But Iwase made a fatal mistake, coming in with a high fastball that the former major leaguer drilled into right-center field for a two-run double.
  The Dragons had a chance to get back into the game in the eighth inning when pinch-hitters Hitoshi Taneda and Hiroyuki Watanabe followed strikeouts with singles. But Kudo ended the threat by fanning rookie Kosuke Fukudome.
  Strong pitching and a baserunning blunder on each side highlighted the first five innings.
Noguchi, 19-7 this season, retired the first 11 batters he faced before designated hitter Noriyoshi Omichi punched a double with two outs in the fourth into the right field corner.
Hiroki Kokubo then hit an easy grounder back to the box that should have ended the inning. But Noguchi, contrary to his sharp control up to that point, made a terrible throw to first base, drawing Gomez off the bag for an error. Luckily for the Dragons, Gomez alertly noticed that Omichi had taken a wide turn at third and picked him off for the third out.
  Noguchi was never the same. He proceeded to walk three batters in the fifth, although the first was erased when Nieves hit into a double play. The other two were left stranded when Shikato Yanagita grounded out harmlessly to first.
  The Dragons blew a chance to score in the second inning when Kazuyoshi Tatsunami singled to right with one out and Kudo hit Lee Jeong Bum with a pitch. But on Kazuki Inoue's soft fly to short center, Tatsunami wandered too far off the base and was picked off by center fielder Arihito Muramatsu for an inning-ending double play. The Dragons put a runner on second with one out in the third inning on Tadashi Nakamura's single and a sacrifice, but he was left stranded when Koichi Sekikawa grounded out and designated hitter Junichi Jinno struck out on a 141 kph fastball.
  "He didn't really overpower us, but he has experience and we couldn't get the runners in," said Chunichi batting coach Kazutoshi Yamada said of Kudo.

EXTRA INNINGS...Daiei slugger Melvin Nieves explained why he has "Shinkansen" written on the padded pine tar rag he uses. A reference to his power? No, he just likes the sound of the word. "I thought it was hilarious," he said. It became his all-purpose word; he addressed teammates with it, and used it in situations when another could have meant trouble, such as: "You called that a strike? Aw, shinkansen!"...Yokohama shortstop Takuro Ishii was one of several BayStars in town to do either radio or TV commentary. Ishii said he prefers playing baseball to talking about it. "And wearing a uniform is more comfortable," he said. 

Ken Marantz Daily Yomiuri Sportswriter

  FUKUOKA -- With the long layoff before the Japan Series, Leo Gomez was far more concerned about getting his timing back at the plate than who he would be facing when he got there. Gomez, batting with Swiss watch-like precision, delivered a pair of two-run doubles to help lead the Chunichi Dragons to an 8-2 victory Sunday night over the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks to tie the series at a game apiece.
  Right-hander Kenshin Kawakami allowed six hits over eight innings as the Dragons, helped by a walk-a-thon produced by six Daiei pitchers, bounced back after being blanked 3-0 by Kimiyasu Kudo in the opener on Saturday. Kawakami, the 1998 Central League rookie of the year who struggled to an 8-9 record this season, struck out eight and walked one. He fanned the side in the fifth and pitched out of a no-out, bases-loaded jam in the sixth that all but sealed the victory.
  "Yesterday, the guy over on the other team pitched a great game, but today was our turn," Gomez said. "You take it one game at a time and today we played a great game." For Gomez, blasting the ball off the fence was a welcome sight from the frustration of the day before, when he was two-time victim in Kudo's record 13-strikeout performance. Not knowing Kudo was not the problem; Gomez does not concern himself with the pitcher. In fact, at meetings to analyze the opposition, the Puerto Rican slugger has instructed his interpreter not to translate what's being said. He felt rusty going into his first games since the Dragons' season ended Oct. 10, but Sunday seemed to regain the stroke that hit 36 homers and drove in 109 runs. "I'm feeling more relaxed at home plate now," he said.
  Kazuyoshi Tatsunami, the hot hitter of the series with four hits in seven at-bats, went 2-for-4 with two RBIs, while rookie Kosuke Fukudome doubled, drew two of the team's 10 walks and scored three runs.
  The series now moves to Nagoya Dome for the next three games starting Tuesday. In the Central League stadium, the designated hitter will no longer be in effect.
  "We wanted to come in here and at least go 1-1," said Gomez, playing in the first series of his three-year career in Japan. "Now we go home more relaxed."
  Contrasting with the pitchers' duel between Kudo and Shigeki Noguchi in the early innings of Game 1, Sunday's game before 36,227 started off with all the finesse of a heavy metal concert. It was like watching Iron Butterfly the day after seeing Madame Butterfly. Daiei starter Kenichi Wakatabe never developed a rhythm, his search for the plate as futile as a quest for the lost city of Atlantis. And when he walked the bases loaded with one out in the first inning, it was easy to see he was struggling to keep his head above water. Tatsunami followed by knocking in the Dragons' first runs of the series, blooping a single to center for a 2-0 lead. Wakatabe then became the second pitcher in series history to walk four batters in one inning, but allowed no more runs.
  Daiei's Koji Akiyama, who broke a scoreless tie with a sixth-inning homer in Game 1, led off the bottom of the first by homering off Kawakami. "I hit it a bit low and I wasn't sure it would go out, but it felt right," Akiyama said. Akiyama's 15th career series homer cut the lead to 2-1, but Chunichi, which won its first CL pennant since 1988, was not finished with Wakatabe. With two outs, designated hitter Daisuke Masuda singled to center and Fukudome drew a walk. Gomez then hit a pitch high off the left field wall, driving in two runs. "Yesterday I had a couple of strikeouts, so I had to forget about it," Gomez said. "Today's a new day and I got a couple of hits." That was it for Wakatabe, who threw just 29 strikes in 52 pitches.
  "I was nervous, but the problem goes far beyond that," said Wakatabe, 10-6 this season. "I couldn't pitch at all like I know I can."
  Left-hander Masahiro Sakumoto fared only slightly better. He pitched 2-2/3 scoreless innings before giving up run-scoring singles to Lee Jeong Bum and Takeshi Nakamura in the fifth. Shuji Yoshida took over in the sixth, but the Dragons tagged him for two runs before he even got an out. Following a walk and Fukudome's double, Gomez belted a sinking liner that fell just out of the reach of sliding left fielder Melvin Nieves for a two-run double. The Hawks' final run came in the eighth when Chihiro Hamana scored all the way from second on a wild pitch by Kawakami.

EXTRA INNINGS...Think this city isn't going a bit crazy over its first Japan Series in 36 years? Scalpers were getting 30,000 yen a pop for unreserved outfield seats, priced at 1,500 yen, a local paper reported...Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. Daiei's Koji Akiyama, third on the all-time series home run list, struck out once to tie former Seibu teammate Hiromichi Ishige for the career strikeout record with 46.

Nagai, Jojima give Hawks 2-1 series lead

Jim Allen Daily Yomiuri Sportswriter

  NAGOYA -- After impressive pitching performances in the first two games of the Japan Series, the fans at Nagoya Dome got more of the same on Tuesday in Game 3. Although the Chunichi Dragons got a solid performance from their starting pitcher, veteran Masahiro Yamamoto, the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks won 5-0 on the strength of second-year pitcher Tomohiro Nagai and some power from batterymate Kenji Jojima.
  Nagai, a right-handed forkballer with a good fastball, got into trouble after two batters were out in the first by continuously missing outside with all his pitches. Two walks and a delayed steal by Kosuke Fukudome gave the Dragons runners at the corners. But Nagai was unfazed by the distraction and ended the inning by striking out Kazuyoshi Tatsunami swinging.
  Nagai then turned on the heat, going aggressively for the first strike and getting ahead of every one of the remaining 15 batters he faced except two. He was perfect from the second inning through the fifth before allowing a walk to pinch-hitter Daisuke Masuda leading off the sixth inning. Yamamoto seemed well in control of a scoreless game until Jojima changed everything with a two-run homer into the lower left-field bleachers. "I'm glad it went out," Jojima said. "But Nagai won the game."
  The Dragons, on the other hand, didn't get their first hit until Leo Gomez hammered a pitch from Daiei reliever Takayuki Shinohara into left with one out in the seventh inning after Nagai had been lifted for a pinch-hitter in the top of the inning.
  After a nervous Kenichi Wakatabe got shelled in the Hawks' 8-2 loss in Game 2, a lot was made of Daiei's young pitching staff and their inexperience. Before the game, Jojima talked it over with Nagai, and the two agreed that their target would be to hold the Dragons scoreless for three innings and just handle it like it was a regular-season game. "After he got through three innings without a hit," Jojima said. "He was very cool. I guess inexperience doesn't matter as much as keeping your cool."
  Yamamoto was a tough opponent as he cleverly mixed in his fastball, slider and screwball with pinpoint accuracy, painting the corners and notching seven strikeouts in his 5-2/3 innings of work. After cruising through the first three innings, Yamamoto got two quick outs and then two quick strikes on the Hawks' struggling clean-up hitter, Hiroki Kokubo. Kokubo, 0-for-7 in the series up to that point, ripped a liner off the next pitch into center field, almost taking Yamamoto's glove with it. Jojima then blasted a 1-0 slider into the seats to make it a 2-0 game, for the Hawks' third round-tripper of the Series.
  "That pitch to Kokubo was the problem," Dragons pitching coach Hisashi Yamada said afterward. "What a waste after he went up 0-2. The pitch to Jojima was up but that one to Kokubo, that was the killer. It was a real waste."
  Although the Hawks finished strong, they started the way they had in each of the first two games--struggling to get hits. They made Yamamoto throw just eight pitches in the first inning despite getting healthy drives to center field off the bats of Koji Akiyama and Melvin Nieves.
Tadahito Iguchi got the Hawks' first hit with two outs in the second and landed on third after a stolen base and an error, but Yamamoto caught Nobuhiko Matsunaka looking on an outside fastball.
  After ending the fourth with a strikeout, Yamamoto got the tail end of the Hawks order with ease in the fifth, but with two outs in the sixth, gave up a hit when the ball dribbled off Nieves' bat and down the third base line. Hiroki Kokubo then lined a single to center, and Yamamoto was done. Reliever Eiji Shotsu came in and ended the threat by getting Jojima to fly out. The Dragons used five more relievers after Shotsu but with mixed success as the Hawks rapped out a total of nine hits and added three more runs.

O'Malley speaks out

Jim Allen Daily Yomiuri Sportswriter

  NAGOYA -- While the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks are playing the Chunichi Dragons in the Japan Series, the Hawks pitchers are playing "Can you top this?" On Wednesday night in Game 4, the Hawks took a commanding 3-1 lead in the series as they beat the Dragons 3-0 at Nagoya Dome.
It was the third shutout of the series for the Hawks after ace Kimiyasu Kudo threw a six-hitter in Game 1, second-year hurler Tomohiro Nagai and two relievers combined on a two-hitter in Game 3.
  On Wednesday, the Hawks went with still another second-year pitcher in right-hander Junji Hoshino. Hoshino, who came to the Hawks as a straight overhand thrower, was converted to throwing side arm because he wasn't getting much movement on the ball. Hoshino baffled the Dragons for 6-1/3 innings, allowing three hits and a walk while striking out one to get the win. Although he admitted being nervous before the game, everything was different once he stepped on the mound. "I felt very relaxed out there," Hoshino said. "But even so, I wouldn't have made it without the great plays the guys made behind me." And the Hawks made some tremendous plays, with third baseman Hiroki Kokubo and right fielder Koji Akiyama providing some fielding gems for the second night in a row, while Arihito Muramatsu made a couple of sparklers in center.
  On the offensive side, Akiyama drove in the Hawks' first run, as he had with homers in Games 1 and 2. Although this time, the damage was done with a double. Kokubo drove in the Hawks' other runs with a bloop single and a solo homer as he went 2-for-4 with a walk. Takayuki Shinohara and Rodney Pedraza polished off the Dragons in relief as he had the night before, with Pedraza earning his first save of the series. The win, in which the Hawks outhit the Dragons 8-5, puts them in a position to wrap up the series tonight in Game 5. Manager Sadaharu Oh, however, was anxious to talk about the business at hand. "The Series doesn't end until you get four wins," Oh said. "So just forget about being 3-1. That's what we have to do, take care of the job at hand." The Dragons now face the prospect of having to go against lefty Kudo tonight in a fight for their post-season lives.
  Dragons' starter Kazuhiro Takeda allowed three runs on six hits in six innings pitching in his first confrontation with his old teammates. Takeda, who left the Hawks as a free agent last winter, struck out six and walked three, but despite his solid performance was hung with the loss. Every ball the Hawks hit in the third turned to gold as they tallied two runs on a squib hit, a fluke double and a blooper. Chihiro Hamana, starting for the first time in the series in place of Shikato Yanagita, led off with a swinging roller that Dragons third baseman Kosuke Fukudome dropped trying to field it bare-handed to catch the speedy Hamana. After two pitiful attempts to bunt, pitcher Hoshino surprised the house when he successfully sacrificed Hamana to third. Akiyama then lined a shot that hit the third base bag and flared into no-man's land, driving in Hamana and giving the Hawks a 1-0 lead.
  Akiyama landed on second with a double and moved up to third on a ground out to first. Melvin Nieves then walked, and Kokubo followed with a flare that right fielder Kazuki Inoue was unable to catch up with, scoring Akiyama for the second run of the inning. With Nieves standing on third, Kenji Jojima tried to bunt his way on and keep the inning alive but was thrown out easily. The Hawks got out of the bottom of the third unscathed only after Akiyama tracked down a drive to right off the bat of the pitcher Takeda, and Muramatsu ended the inning with a super-diving grab.
  Kokubo opened the top of the sixth with a home run that made it a 3-0 game. With two out, Tadahito Iguchi knocked a broken-bat single between third and short. He stole second and moved to third on a wild pitch. When No. 8 hitter Hamana walked on a full count, manager Sadaharu Oh elected to send his pitcher, Hoshino, to the plate where he fanned on three pitches to end the inning. In a similar situation in Game 3, Oh had sent in a pinch-hitter for his starter in the top of the seventh inning--despite the fact that he was pitching a no hitter at the time.

EXTRA INNINGS: Dragons reliever Samson Lee was deactivated for the game with pain in his left shoulder. The left-handed set-up man's status is uncertain for the remainder of the series... Former Los Angeles Dodgers president Peter O'Malley, a friend of both managers, threw out the first pitch for Game 4. 

Hawks soar to Japan Series title - Drop Dragons for 1st crown since '64

Jim Allen Daily Yomiuri Sportswriter

  NAGOYA--The Fukuoka Daiei Hawks had the Chunichi Dragons backed to the edge of the cliff, then sent them off with a 6-4 win Thursday night in the decisive Game 5 of the 1999 Japan Series at Nagoya Dome. It was the first Japan Series victory for the Hawks since 1964, when the team was owned by Nankai and based in Osaka, and the first in two tries for manager Sadaharu Oh. The Hawks moved in 1989 to Fukuoka, which had not had a pro baseball champion since the old Nishitetsu Lions, now Seibu, won in 1958. For the Dragons and manager Senichi Hoshino, the loss was a heartbreak in the same fashion as Hoshino's four games to one loss to the Seibu Lions in 1988, when they also split the first two games and then dropped the last three.
  Kenji Jojima had a two-run double and Nobuhiko Matsunaka doubled in three runs as the Hawks exploded for six runs in the third inning before a paid attendance of 38,011. Veteran outfielder Koji Akiyama, who won six championships earlier in his career with the Seibu Lions, won his second Most Valuable Player award after batting .300 (6-for-20), hitting two home runs and making several spectacular catches.
  "Today was nerve-wracking right up to the end," said Oh, in his fifth year as the Hawks' manager. He also managed the losing Yomiuri Giants in the 1987 series. "The players really hung in there."
  Leo Gomez and Takeshi Nakamura hit solo homers to get the Dragons back in the game, and Lee Jeong Bum's pinch-hit double in the seventh cut the Hawks lead to two. Lefty Shuji Yoshida, the third of five Daiei pitchers, earned the win in relief after allowing one run on two hits in 2-1/3 innings. Rodney Pedraza pitched the final 1-1/3 innings to earn his second save.
  With no room to maneuver, the Dragons sent ace left-hander Shigeki Noguchi to the mound in the hopes of stemming the tide and sending the Series back to Fukuoka for Game 6. Thursday's game was easily the wildest and strangest game in the series, and the strangeness began the night before on the heels of Hawks' Game 4 victory, when it was hinted that manager Oh might not use his ace lefty Kimiyasu Kudo, who outdueled Noguchi in the Hawks' 3-0 victory in Game 1. Oh sent a lefty, but it was fourth-year journeyman Masahiro Sakumoto, who would try to finish off the Dragons despite their record of 23-9 against southpaws during the season. The Hawks' surprise starter lasted 2-1/3 innings and gave up two runs, one earned on the only hit he allowed--a homer to Leo Gomez. He walked three and struck out one. Noguchi, who got the loss, went four innings and gave up six unearned runs on five hits, He struck out four and walked two, one intentionally.
  As it turned out, the game provided enough material for an entire blooper reel that won't draw many grins from the Dragons, who played poorly through most of the series and completed the saga with a grand collapse in the finale. The Dragons staged a piece-meal rally with a run here and a run there, but in the end there just weren't enough innings left for them to recover from the hole they had dug for themselves. "It was like they just self-destructed," said Hawks slugger Noriyoshi Omichi.
  But in the beginning, the Hawks played like they were just as eager to continue the series in Kyushu as the Dragons were. In the first inning, Koichi Sekikawa, hitless in 16 at-bats, laid into a 3-2 pitch and drove it to the track in left. He landed on second but was robbed of his first series hit by the official scorers, who charged left fielder Melvin Nieves with an error on the play. Nieves raced back only to have the ball glance off the top of his glove. Hitoshi Taneda sacrificed Sekikawa to third, but a throwing error by Sakumoto allowed Taneda to reach safely. On the play, Taneda collided with second baseman Shikato Yanagita, who was covering first, and Sekikawa hustled home with the Dragons' first run in 21 innings. Kosuke Fukudome then popped up a sacrifice bunt to third baseman Hiroki Kokubo, who had the option of catching the ball or dropping it and getting a double play, depending on whether the runner on first held his base or broke for second. But Kokubo got it wrong. Taneda broke for second, and instead of catching the ball and doubling him off first, Kokubo let it drop and only made the play at first.
After Akiyama made a great catch on a sinking liner in right for the second out, Sakumoto loaded the bases with walks before Kazuki Inoue struck out flailing. "A lot of weird stuff happened that inning," Sakumoto said. "But my pitching is what cost us."
  The Hawks blew the game open in the third, an inning as artless as the Dragons' first. Yanagita lead off with a single, and Akiyama followed one out later with a single to left. Noguchi then muffed a comebacker to load the bases. Noguchi got Nieves to hit a tailor-made double play ball to short that should have ended the inning--except that shortstop Fukudome dropped it, allowing the tying run to score. One out later, Jojima followed by belting a hanging slider to left for a two-run double and a 3-1 lead. Noguchi intentionally walked right-handed hitting Tadahito Iguchi to pitch to lefty Matsunaka, who sent an inside fastball to the wall in right that right fielder Inoue got to but never got his glove on, clearing the bases.
  After Gomez smashed his first home run of the series to center in the bottom of the third, the Dragons loaded the bases with one out in the fourth but failed to score. In the seventh, Nakamura also cracked a solo homer to make it a 6-3 game. In the seventh inning, facing the Hawks ace middleman, lefty Takayuki Shinohara, Kazuyoshi Tatsunami singled and pinch-hitter Lee smoked the first pitch high up the wall in left center for a double to score Tatsunami and close the gap to two runs.
  In the bottom of the eighth, Shinohara, pitching his sixth inning in three games, walked Masuda and Junichi Jinno. Oh then brought in Pedraza, the sinker-throwing Texan, who found success as the Hawks' closer after a career as a starting pitcher. Pedraza, like Shinohara pitching in his third straight game, finished the inning by getting Fukudome on a deep drive to left.
  In the ninth, Gomez flew out on the first pitch, and three pitches later, Tatsunami grounded out to short. After a wicked foul smash on the first pitch, Lee struck out to end the series in Nagoya.
EXTRA INNINGS: Daiei first baseman Nobuhiko Matsunaka, who played for Japan in last month's Olympic qualifying tournament, said there is no comparison between the two in terms of pressure. "Here," he said, "you can lose three games. In the Olympic tournament, you can't lose at all."...Think the pitchers didn't dominate this series? Daiei batted .215 as a team, while Chunichi hit a paltry .190.