The Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters were struggling to score, trailing by a run and down to their last out in the seventh inning.
And they had the Hiroshima Carp right where they wanted them.
The Fighters tied the score in the seventh, and Haruki Nishikawa hit a sayonara grand slam that lifted them to a 5-1 win over the Carp on Thursday that brought the Fighters within a win of their first Japan Series title in a decade.