Nippon Ham Fighters

Former Nippon Ham Fighter Yu Darvish tweeted the following on Wednesday:

日ハムーソフトバンクをテレビ観戦してます(^^) 吉川、フォーム変わったな〜 てか札幌ドーム満員になってないね^^;

I am watching the Nippon Ham-Softbank game.  Yoshikawa, his delivery has changed.  Wait, Sapporo Dome is not a full house.

Chunichi Dragons

Morimichi Takagi originally wanted Motonobu Tanishige to advance the runner on first with a sac bunt in the 9th, but removed the bunt sign when the count went 1-1 and instead went with the hit-and-run.  That ended up being the right decision since Tanishige hit an RBI double and snapped his sixty trips to the plate without a hit streak.  Source: Daily Sports 10/18/2012

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The Dragon have faced the Yomiuri Giants in the Final Stage five times -- 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012 -- since it was implemented in 2007.  They have also won the first game of each of those five encounters.  Source: Sponichi 10/18/2012

Yomiuri Giants

TV ratings for the Final Stage game on Wednesday were 12.1% for the Kanto region.  Source: Daily Sports 10/18/2012