There are dramatic finishes, and there is the madness that unfolded in the 10th inning at Zozo Marine Stadium on Monday night.

The first stage of the Climax Series wrapped up with one of the best games of the entire year, with the Chiba Lotte Marines and Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks dueling in the third and decisive game in the Pacific League series.

What began as a left-handed pitching duel between the Marines Kazuya Ojima and the Hawks’ 42-year-old veteran Tsuyoshi Wada evolved into a battle of bullpen attrition and then a high-stakes contest of one-upmanship over the course of 4 hours and 18 minutes.

SoftBank put a foot in the next round of the playoffs in the 10th inning by taking a 3-0 lead behind three consecutive run-scoring hits. The Marines evened the score with a three-run home run by Yudai Fujioka, who hit one homer in 93 games during the regular season.

Lotte grabbed a 4-3 win when Hisanori Yasuda hit a two-out double to right field and Hiromi Oka scored from first. Even that was close as can be, with the Hawks requesting — and losing — a replay review on the play at the plate.

“I was definitely thinking about ending it right there,” Yasuda said.

It was a breathless ending to a first stage that saw the Hiroshima Carp sweep past the DeNA BayStars in two games in the Central League series.

The scene now shifts to Kansai, where the CL and PL league champions, the Hanshin Tigers and Orix Buffaloes, will enter the fray with places in the Japan Series on the line in the final stage of the Climax Series.

Hanshin and Orix, courtesy of winning their respective league’s pennant, will host each game of the best-of-seven final stage and begin with an automatic 1-0 advantage.

While the Buffaloes clinched the pennant in mid-September — and have not played since their season finale on Oct. 9 — the Marines played on the razor’s edge just to get into the postseason before taking down the Hawks. They are fresh, amped up and hoping to pull the upset.

“We fought as one team today,” Yasuda said Monday. “We want to keep this momentum going in Osaka.”

One of baseball’s most enduring quotes, however, came from former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver, who once famously remarked that, “Momentum is the next day's starting pitcher.”

In this case, it’s a reminder that even though the Marines could probably skip the shinkansen and ride Monday’s wave of jubilation to Osaka, the momentum lies with the Buffaloes and starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Yamamoto (16-6 with a 1.21 ERA this season), who won the pitching triple crown for the third straight year, is the ace of a staff that was the best in the PL. Yamamoto and Hiroya Miyagi, Orix’s second-best arm, were a combined 6-1 with a 0.90 ERA in 10 starts against the Marines in 2023. Lotte’s hitters had some success, however, in six games against the Buffaloes’ Sachiya Yamasaki.

The Lotte pitchers will have to contend with an Orix lineup featuring catcher Tomoya Mori, a former Seibu Lions star who had a bounceback season in his first year with the club, batting .294 with 18 home runs.

“We had a lot of games where we came up just a little short,” Lotte manager Masato Yoshii told reporters Monday night per Nikkan Sports. “We’re going to do our best to score as many runs as possible.”

The Buffaloes led the PL in team batting average and home runs, while the Marines were fifth out of six teams in ERA and used its three best pitchers over the weekend to get out of the first stage.

Lotte’s Takashi Ogino enters the series after leading the first stage with five hits, including a homer, and a key defensive play from right field that kept Game 3 scoreless. Yasuda had four hits in the first stage, while Fujioka, Oka, and home run king Gregory Polanco each had three.

The Marines are heavy underdogs and face the added challenge of starting the series with the back end of their pitching rotation. Each win they muster, however, gets them closer to putting ace pitcher Roki Sasaki, who threw three innings in the first stage on Saturday, and late-season hero Kazuya Ojima, who pitched Monday, on the mound.

Manabu Mima will be first up on the mound for the Marines, with the Buffaloes handing the ball to Yamamoto.

The final stage in the Central League will be a homecoming for Carp manager Takahiro Arai, who played for the Tigers from 2008 to 2014 and helped the club reach the 2014 Japan Series. He played for the Tigers under current Hanshin manager Akinobu Okada in 2008.

The Tigers will be trying to reach the Japan Series in hopes of adding to their lone triumph, which came in 1985.

Hanshin scored the most runs in the CL and allowed the fewest. Like Orix, pitching is the team’s strength and Okada has three pitchers — Shoki Murakami, Masashi Ito and Kotaro Otake — with at least 20 starts and ERAs below 2.40. Hiroki Saiki likely missed being part of the group by two starts.

Teruaki Sato also got rolling at the plate during the final month of the season, batting .356 with nine home runs after September, while all-around star Koji Chikamoto and Yusuke Oyama provide more offensive threats.

Unlike the Marines, who needed their best three pitchers to escape the first stage, Hiroshima wrapped up its series in two games. That means Aren Kuri, who was slated to start Game 3 against the BayStars, can take the mound in Game 1 against the Tigers, with Daichi Osera possibly starting Game 2.

Murakami will start Game 1 for Hanshin.

No matter which team wins this series, one will have a chance to end a long Japan Series drought. The Carp boast the longest wait in NPB after their last Japan Series victory in 1984, while the second-longest drought belongs to the Tigers.

The Tigers and Buffaloes won their respective leagues by a wide margin and seem to be on a collision course for the first all-Kansai Japan Series since the Tigers faced the Nankai Hawks, who played in Osaka Stadium, in 1964. The Carp and Marines, meanwhile, will try to spoil the party.

The final stage begins in both leagues on Wednesday night.