The 2026 Nippon Professional Baseball postseason opened on Saturday with two best-of-three Climax Series First Stage matchups. The second-seeded Saitama Seibu Lions hosted the Hokkaido Nipponham Fighters in the Pacific League, while the Yomiuri Giants hosted the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in the Central League. Both lower-seeded teams advanced, with DeNA sweeping Yomiuri and Nipponham winning two straight after dropping the opener.
Pacific: Fighters 2 – 1 Lions
Seibu won Game 1, 3-2, on Alexander Canario’s big walk-off home run in the tenth inning. Earlier, Taiga Hirasawa’s solo homer and Manaya Nishikawa’s RBI single accounted for Seibu’s scoring, while Taiki Narama hit a two-run homer for Nipponham off ace Kaima Taira.
The Fighters responded with a narrow 1-0 victory in Game 2 behind six scoreless innings and seven strikeouts from Kota Tatsu. Yuki Nomura’s fifth-inning RBI double provided the only run, and three relievers passed the baton for the shutout.
Nipponham took Monday’s deciding game, 4-1. Nomura again opened the scoring, Chusei Mannami added a solo homer, and Narama drove in a run with a sacrifice fly. Hiromi Itoh allowed one run over five innings before the bullpen delivered four more scoreless frames. Taisei Yanagawa saved both games as the Fighters reached the Final Stage for the third straight year.
Central: BayStars 2 – 0 Giants
DeNA stole Game 1, 2-1, despite Haruto Inoue’s eight innings of one-run ball with 10 strikeouts and no walks. Shugo Maki homered in the first after going 0 for 13 against Inoue during the regular season. Ryuki Watarai broke a ninth-inning tie with a solo shot off star closer Raidel Martinez, silencing the crowd. Sean Reynolds stranded the tying run at third to secure the save.
Watarai led off Game 2 with another homer, helping DeNA build an early lead en route to a 4-1 victory. Keita Sano went 4 for 4, Maki hit his second home run of the series, and Yutaro Ishida allowed one run over five innings. Four relievers combined for four hitless innings, sending the BayStars to their third consecutive Final Stage. It was also their third straight year eliminating Yomiuri in the playoffs.
Climax Series Final Stage
Both league championship series begin Wednesday, October 14, at 6:00 p.m. JST, or 5:00 a.m. EST.
Hanshin hosts DeNA at Koshien with an automatic 1-0 lead. The Tigers need three wins to advance, while the BayStars need four in a maximum of six games.
SoftBank hosts Nipponham at Mizuho PayPay Dome with an automatic 2-0 lead, because they earned two ghost wins for finishing more than 10 games up on the Fighters in the regular season. The Hawks still need three wins, while the Fighters need five in a maximum of seven games.
The Japan Series begins October 24, with the Central League representative hosting Games 1, 2, 6, and 7. Given the advantages of the pennant-winning sides, a rematch of the 2025 Nippon Series between the Tigers and Hawks is heavily anticipated.
