Hiroki Kokubo and the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks had an entire offseason to ponder what went wrong in the Japan Series last year.
The Hawks steamrolled everything in their path on the way to the Pacific League and Climax Series titles before falling at the final hurdle in an inexplicable collapse against the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in the Japan Series.
Now one year later, the Hawks are back at the same stage hoping for a different outcome. They will host the Hanshin Tigers in Game 1 of this year’s Japan Series on Saturday night and will be motivated to finish the job this time.
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