The Yokohama BayStars finished third in the Central League for the second straight season, and seek to do better than they fared in last year's postseason.
To that end, the ballclub will count on two key pitchers' tendency to perform better away.
Last year, the BayStars made it to the Climax Series for the first time since the postseason format was introduced in 2007 and beat the second-place Yomiuri Giants at Tokyo Dome in the first stage to advance to the final stage, where they fell to the Hiroshima Carp.