Waiting for Spring

SoftBank's machine edged out Hanshin and we watched, knowing it was inevitable

The 2025 World Series wrapped up yesterday, and was one of the greatest ever, with the Dodgers ultimately edging out the Blue Jays 4-3/. The 2025 Nippon Series wrapped up on Thursday, and was fairly mundane, with the Hawks rolling over the Tigers 4-1.

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There are clean losses and there are messy losses. The Hanshin Tigers’ loss to the SoftBank Hawks in the 2025 Japan Series wasn’t either*. It was, in its own way, a beautiful loss: slow, inevitable, and oddly dignified. The kind that unfolds over a series until even the most faithful fans find themselves quietly nodding and admitting “Ah, yes. They’re just better.”

But before we get to the loss, it’s worth remembering how good this season was.

*Okay, Game 2 was a messy loss, a 10-1 blow out in favor of the Hawks.

On September 7th, the Hanshin Tigers did something they’d never done in 90 years: clinch the Central League pennant with a rookie manager at the helm. Under Kyuji Fujikawa—former star closer for the Tigers and, briefly, a major leaguer with the Cubs and Rangers—the team wrapped up the title earlier than any in franchise history, one day ahead of Yomiuri’s old record. Sorry, Kyojin fans.

The Tigers’ success this year came from something deceptively simple: health and stability. The top five batters in the order all started at least 100 games—the first time that’s happened for the club in over a decade. And Teruaki Sato, the likely Central League MVP, hit 40 home runs and became the first Tiger ever to drive in 400 runs within his first five seasons. It was the kind of season that felt balanced, sustainable, and, for once in Hanshin history, normal. Which should’ve been the warning sign.

Sure, they played under .500 ball after clinching but that was to be expected. Nobody was going to catch them, so it was time to rest and get ready for the postseason. And ready they seemed: they swept the defending champion Yokohama BayStars in the final round of the Climax Series.

Then came the Japan Series.

And the familiar feeling returned.

On Thursday night, in front of 41,606 fans at Koshien, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks clinched the series with a 3-2 extra-inning win, their players spilling onto the mound while the Tigers stood stunned and their fans wept. After Hanshin took the opener on the road, SoftBank responded emphatically—winning four straight to capture their first championship since 2020, their twelfth NPB title overall. First baseman Hotaka Yamakawa was named Series MVP after homering in Games 2, 3, and 4. Of course he was.*

*Yamakawa was accused of sexual assault in May 2023. His team at the time, the Seibu Lions, swiftly removed him from the roster. In August 2023, the Tokyo District Prosecutor’s Office decided not to press charges. However, Seibu still imposed an indefinite suspension on him the following week. Yamakawa would later exercise his free-agent rights and sign with SoftBank in the offseason.

For a team that began the season 9-16-2 and dead last in Japan, it was a remarkable turnaround. Hiroki Kokubo’s squad looked broken in April—injuries everywhere, morale low, offense sputtering—but they quickly found themselves in May, finished with the best record in the country, and nearly collapsed again in the Climax Series before escaping by a thread. By the time they reached Hanshin, they looked inevitable again. They looked like SoftBank: relentless and machine-like.

Game 5 felt like Hanshin’s last chance to rewrite the script. Kotaro Ohtake, the former SoftBank pitcher, started for the Tigers; Kohei Arihara took the mound for the Hawks. Both breezed through the first inning. In the second, with two outs and runners on first and second, catcher Seishiro Sakamoto lined a two-seamer into left, shouting afterward that they had “no choice but to win.” Two innings later, Teruaki Sato—who’d driven in runs in every game of the Series—punched another RBI single up the middle off reliever Jesus Hernández. Hanshin led 2–0. The stadium vibrated.

But the eighth changed everything. With one out and a runner on, Yuki Yanagita dug in against Daichi Ishii—the same reliever who hadn’t allowed a run in fifty straight appearances, and hadn’t given up a home run since July 2023. Ishii was also pitching for the third day in a row. On the first pitch, an outside fastball, Yanagita uncoiled and sent it screaming toward the left-field pole. It stayed fair by inches. “I made a good swing,” he said later, though it was the kind of swing that rewrites history. Suddenly, it was 2-2.

From there, the game slid into extra innings. In the tenth, Fujikawa made the kind of decision that wins you statues if it works and long winters if it doesn’t: he called on ace Shoki Murakami, the Game 1 winner, for his first relief appearance of the year. Murakami wriggled out of a jam in the tenth, but in the eleventh, SoftBank’s leadoff batter Isami Nomura turned on a 2-2 fastball and sent it just over the right-field fence. “All I could do was desperately hang on,” he said afterward. It was his first postseason home run, and it put the Hawks three outs from glory.

In the bottom half, Sato walked, giving Koshien one last gasp of hope. But Yuki Matsumoto, SoftBank’s sixth pitcher of the night, calmly retired Ohyama, Kinami, and Takatera in order. The final out: a routine grounder to second. Hawks rush the field. Tigers stand still. Cue curtain.

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It was, somehow, Hanshin’s third straight one-run loss at home. Every game was tight, every game just out of reach. Game 3 gave us the marquee matchup between the league ERA champions, Livan Moinelo and Hiroto Saiki. Hanshin struck first, but Yamakawa’s solo shot and a Tatsuru Yanagimachi triple flipped the script. Game 4, same story: Yamakawa again, to dead center, third homer in three games, tying a Japan Series record.

You could feel it building toward the same ending we’ve seen before. The Central League’s best story undone by the Pacific League’s inevitability.

After the loss, Fujikawa said the thing only he could say: “There’s no regret. They were simply stronger.”

Then, later: “ありがたい.”

A word that means “thankful,” but in that moment meant something more like “grateful for the pain.” A sentiment that could only come from a Hanshin man.

Fujikawa’s first year as manager was, by any measure, a success. A pennant. A sweep in the Central League Climax Series. They ended the “Curse of the Colonel” two years ago; they’ve built a core that can sustain success. But SoftBank (always SoftBank) reminded them what the next level looks like.

When it was over, Kokubo was tossed into the Koshien night sky nine times—one for each number he wore as a player. “I’m just happy we achieved what we fell short of last year,” he said, drenched in champagne. It was SoftBank’s twelfth Japan Series title, their first in five years, and their eighth in the past fourteen seasons. They’ve only missed the postseason three times since 2004.

There’s something quietly admirable about losing beautifully. The Tigers didn’t choke or implode; they simply ran out of magic against the most efficient machine in the league. Now the Tigers, their fans, and everyone else will wait for winter to pass and for spring to return, bringing with it that fragile hope that next time might be different.