FUKUOKA ¨C The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks will try to strike first, scoring runs early, so they can play their own brand of ball in the 2017 Japan Series.
Before Saturday¡¯s Game 1 of the NPB championship series, Hawks hitting coach Hiroshi Fujimoto said that the Hawks would focus on getting on the board before the Yokohama BayStars.
¡°We want to score some runs to startle (the BayStars),¡± Fujimoto said. ¡°Their first couple of hitters in the lineup don¡¯t have much power. But we do. And we have (Seiichi) Uchikawa, who¡¯s in top form right now, in the cleanup spot. We want to go aggressively from early (on), because they change their pitchers a lot.¡±
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