There were no real challengers for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in the Pacific League last season. The team was the class of NPB during the regular season, finishing with 91 victories — no other club in Japan had more than 77 — and winning the pennant by 13½ games. The only shortcoming was an inexplicable collapse in the Japan Series, where the Hawks lost Games 3 through 6 as the Yokohama BayStars claimed the title.
While many expect the Hawks to win the pennant again, flamboyant manager Tsuyoshi Shinjo and his young and up-and-coming Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters may finally be ready to pose a challenge. The team has been building momentum, and may feed off the confidence of last season’s playoff run.
The Chiba Lotte Marines will try to prove they are more than Roki Sasaki, while the Orix Buffaloes continue to recover from losing Masataka Yoshida and Yoshinobu Yamamoto to MLB in consecutive seasons. The league’s other two teams, the Seibu Lions and Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, have a long way to go before challenging SoftBank’s supremacy, but should be eager to prove they belong in the race for the Climax Series.
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