The Samsung Lions beat the Softbank Hawks tonight, 5-3, and took the 2011 Asia Series.  The Softbank loss also ended the NPBs streak of four straight Asia Series Championships (Lotte in 2005, Nippon Ham in 2006, Chunichi in 2007, Seibu in 2008).

Won Sam Jang, who started and won two games for the Samsung Lions, was presented with the MVP award.

Sponichi is reporting that Tadashi Settsu was scratched from his Asia Series start tonight because of tightness in his shoulder.

The Hawks worked out for about two hours (BP, fielding practice) at Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium earlier today.  And Sho Iwasaki has apparently been tabbed to start the Finals game of the Asia Series tomorrow night.  Iwasaki is coming off a two-inning start on Sunday and told reporters, "I am good, not [feeling tired] at all.  I want to end this with a victory."

The Softbank Hawks practiced Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium on Thursday.  Their workouts included BP and fielding practice (also doubled as way to check on field conditions).

=

Munenori Kawasaki, Nobuhiro Matsuda, and Yuichi Honda held an autograph session at Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium for 30 people on Thursday.

=

Shota Oba will be starting tomorrow's game against the Uni President Lions.

Source: Official team website

The Softbank Hawks headed to Taiwan out of Fukuoka Airport today.

And Sponichi reports the following possible starting rotation:

11/25 vs Uni President Lions - Shota Oba

11/26 vs Samsung Lions - Hiroki Yamada

11/27 vs Perth Heat - Sho Iwasaki

And if they advance to the Finals, Tadashi Settsu.

The Softbank Hawks started preparing for the Asia Series today with workouts at Yahoo Dome.

As mentioned before, Toshiya Sugiuchi and Tsuyoshi Wada will not be participating.  Munenori Kawasaki will be playing.  As will Nobuhiro Matsuda.

For starting pitchers, the Hawks will probably go with Shota Oba, Sho Iwasaki, and Hiroki Yamada.

The media learned on Monday that TBS received about 150 complaints from its viewers regarding their coverage of game 7 of the Nippon Series (like how they cut coverage in the middle of Koji Akiyama's post-game interview).

Coincidence?  What may be more interesting to know is that the TV program shown immediately after the Series was a serial drama (sixth episode) that pulled in TV ratings of 19.1% in the Kanto region.  That same drama was seeing a steady decline in ratings since its first episode on 10/16 (first episode: 22.2%, second episode: 19.0%, third episode: 16.9%, fourth episode: 15.8%, and fifth episode: 13.2%).

According to Sponichi: Tsuyoshi Wada and Toshiya Sugiuchi probably won't be going to the Asia Series -- Wada wants rest and Sugiuchi is still recovering from some left shoulder pains.  D.J. Houlton is scheduled to return to the US today.  That leaves Tadashi Settsu and Hiroki Yamada as the only Nippon Series starters that will probably be available for the Asia Series.

Nobuhiko Matsunaka (right knee) and Hiroki Kokubo (back, neck) will be missing the Asia Series because of injuries.

Softbank Hawks

Estimated economic impact of the Hawks winning the Nippon Series for Fukuoka - about 38.8B yen.  Of that, 23.7 yen will be through store sales and 9.6B yen will be through things like transportation for tourists and food sales.

===

Koji Akiyama's father was at Yahoo Dome to watch game 7 in person.  He also brought along with him a photo of his wife that passed away on 8/10.

===

The Hawks' combined team ERA of 1.11 set a new record for a 7-game Series.  Akiyama also became the 19th manager to win a Nippon Series in his first appearance.

===

Sadaharu Oh's comments on the Hawks winning the Nippon Series (via Sanspo):

It was the team's first Nippon Series in 8 years...

It was a great battle.  They showed their mettle by working together.  It was great.

The Series went to 7 games...

It was an exciting Series.  And the team that was the most persistent ended up becoming Japan's number 1 team.

This is the first time the team has won a Nippon Series since you became chairman.

It's been eight years?  The owner was really happy too.  I think I may have been able to give back a little.

[Koji] Akiyama did it in his third year as manager...

They have gotten stronger over the years and are now a wonderful team.

Teams will be chasing the Hawks next season...

I can't stop thinking about next season.  We want to work on expanding the abilities of the team.  We'd like to see that happen with the players as well.

Chunichi Dragons

The Dragons set new Nippon Series lows, for a seven game series, in hitting (.155), hits (34), runs (9), total bases (48), and RBI (9).

They also have the third lowest team ERA for a losing team in Series history.  The two teams with better ERAs that lost the Nippon Series: the 1954 Nishitetsu Lions had a 1.80 ERA and the 1987 Yomiuri Giants had a 2.08 ERA.

===

Hitoki Iwase extended his scoreless innings streak to 17.2 and set a new record for consecutive scoreless innings, beginning with his first appearance.

===

Hiromitsu Ochiai may have earned about 23.6M yen over the 20 additional days he was manager of the team this month (his contract ran out in October).  He's also apparently going to earn 2M yen for appearing at the team CL championship parade.