Pacific League Playoff
The Marines finished second to the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in the Pacific League in 2005, giving them home-field advantage in the playoffs for the first round against the defending Japan Series Champion Seibu Lions. The Marines swept the Lions and then got into a dramatic five-game series with the favored Hawks.
Despite being one out away from sweeping the Hawks, closer Kobayashi coughed up a 4-0 lead in Game 3 of the best-of-five series. SoftBank would win Game 3 in extra innings, and then also won Game 4. However, the Marines won Game 5 on a clutch double from Tomoya Satozaki.
Read more about this topic: 2005 Japan Series
Famous quotes containing the words pacific and/or league:
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)