The Orix Buffaloes got every break they needed to overtake the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and win the Pacific League pennant for the second straight season.
The way everything fell in place over the weekend felt miraculous, but do not let that obscure the fact the Buffaloes made this happen — even if they did get a little push from the baseball gods at the end.
The Buffaloes did not stumble into the pennant. Orix snatched it from SoftBank with a 13-8-1 record from Sept. 1 — the Buffaloes were the only PL club with fewer than 11 losses in that span.
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