The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks won the first two games of the Japan Series with a blowout and a dramatic late-inning comeback.
To get the third, they just had to hang on.
Run-scoring hits by Seiichi Uchikawa and Hiroaki Takaya gave the Hawks an early lead, and six relievers bent but didn't break in making it stand up, as SoftBank moved to the brink of another championship with a 3-2 win over the Yokohama BayStars in Game 3 on Tuesday night at Yokohama Stadium in front of a crowd of 27,153.