Overview

• Both leagues open the Final Stage on October 15, with Hanshin hosting DeNA at Koshien and Pacific League champion SoftBank starting at home under the one-win advantage format.
• SoftBank enters after consecutive Pacific League titles and has reached the Final Stage 12 times, advancing to the Japan Series 8 times, the most among NPB’s 12 clubs.
• When starting as regular-season leaders, the Hawks have advanced in 6 of 7 Final Stages, with the lone miss coming against third-place Chiba Lotte in 2010.
• SoftBank carries an active eight-game winning streak in Final Stage contests when entering as the top seed, excluding the automatic advantage win.
• Historical data underscores the opener’s weight, as Pacific League first-place teams that win Game 1 have advanced every time, with pregame attention on stars such as Murakami and Azuma in the Central and Moinelo and Yanagimachi Tatsu in the Pacific.