The Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters' magic number is down to three after they beat the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles 2-1 in 11 innings and the second-place Fukuoka Softbank Hawks lost 7-5 to the Seibu Lions on Sunday.
The Fighters won their record 84th game of the season with their eighth walk-off victory of the year at Sapporo Dome, thanks to Rakuten reliever Hiroyuki Fukuyama's (4-5) two-out wild pitch that scored Shohei Otani from third.
Otani also had a game-tying RBI single in the eighth for one of his three hits on the afternoon. Yohei Kagiya (5-3) pitched the 11th to pick up the win.