Then the Buffaloes pounded out 14 hits in Game 5 on November 25, including the big one in the ninth, when longtime former major leaguer Adam Jones belted a pinch-hit solo blast off McGough to give Orix a 6-5 win. McGough recorded saves in Games 3 and 4, closing out the Swallows’ 5-4 and 2-1 wins at Tokyo Dome. Redemption came for McGough, a former Miami Marlins pitcher, later in the series ー along with additional disappointment. Yakult closer Scott McGough took the loss after failing to record an out in the ninth and allowing three hits and a walk. Orix overcame a 3-1 deficit in the final inning and earned a 4-3 win. Pacific League batting champion Masataka Yoshida’s walk-off double in the ninth inning lifted the Buffaloes past the Swallows. Game 1 delivered a vivid glimpse of how the Japan Series would unfold.

Japan Series-winning manager Shingo Takatsu.

The Swallows reached the championship series for the first time since 2015. The Buffaloes were back in the Japan Series for the first time since 1996, when the Pacific League’s Orix BlueWave won the title, nine years before Orix and the Kintetsu Buffaloes merged franchises. Takatsu took over as Yakult’s dugout boss before the 2020 season, with Nakajima handed Orix’s managerial reins in August of the same year. The unusual pairing of two teams that had finished last in their respective leagues the previous season added a delightful layer of intrigue to this matchup ー and fresh faces in the Japanese Fall Classic.

Five games by the thinnest of margins and the other followed a similar pattern (Yakult 2, Orix 0 in Game 2). on Saturday, November 27, Swallows manager Shingo Takatsu and his Orix Buffaloes counterpart, Satoshi Nakajima, had witnessed one of the best best-of-seven games series in any pro sport in recent memory. In fact, this year’s Japan Series was the polar opposite of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks’ back-to-back, four-game sweeps of the Yomiuri Giants in the Japan Series in 20.Īnd by the time the final out was recorded just after 11 p.m.

With five of the six 2021 Japan Series games decided by one run, the overall story of how the Tokyo Yakult Swallows won their first Nippon Professional Baseball championship in 20 years was jam-packed with drama.

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