(Lotte won 2 games of the first stage to advance past Seibu; Softbank started the second stage with a one-game advantage, but a team still has to win 4 games to advance, and Lotte has won 3 and Softbank has won 2, so they are tied.)
I will try to get home on time to liveblog this one. I got home at 6:15 last night and they were already in the second inning.
Keio beat Meiji 4-3; I guess Yusuke Nomura finally became touchable again. Koji Fukutani got the win (Daisuke Takeuchi pitched the first 4 innings, Fukutani handled the rest). Since Keio also slammed Meiji 8-0 on Sunday and Waseda beat Rikkio 3-2 on a 10th-inning walkoff home run by Toshiki Yamada, these are the standings after Week 6...
G W L T SP WP%
Waseda 10 8 2 0 4 .800
Keio 12 6 4 2 3 .600
Hosei 11 6 4 1 2 .600
Meiji 10 5 5 0 2 .500
Rikkio 12 3 6 3 1 .333
Tokyo 9 1 8 0 0 .111
(Games, Win, Loss, Tie, Series Point, Win Percentage)
Week 7 is Hosei-Tokyo and Meiji-Rikkio, and Week 8 is Keio-Waseda. Each team has one series left to play, which means that none of the bottom 4 teams can get 4 Series Points and catch Waseda.
Because Keio won Week 6, they are the only team that has ANY chance, and it is a slim one: They have to win Soukeisen and they have to win it 2 games to 0, in which case both they and Waseda will have 8 wins and 4 losses. That forces a one-game playoff, and whoever wins THAT, wins the league.
If Waseda wins even one game at Soukeisen, even if they lose Soukeisen itself, they still win the league because Keio's record will be 8-5 to Waseda's 8-4.
It seems pretty likely that it'll be another Waseda championship to bookend Yuki Saitoh's college career, but you never know. I didn't think Keio could beat Waseda last semester either, and they pulled that win out of nowhere, so who knows. What I do know is that Soukeisen is going to be PACKED and I should probably go buy tickets now even if I don't know for sure that I'm going.
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