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The story
A live-commentary thread went up on 5ch’s “Anything Goes Live” board after SoftBank’s Ryoya Kurihara hit a walk-off grand slam in the Climax Series. The blast eliminated the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, and the thread erupted with joy. As the discussion went on, it became more than just a victory celebration — posters debated whether Kosuke Kondo or Kurihara is the favorite for this season’s Pacific League MVP, and some questioned the fairness of the CS format itself, which is widely seen as favoring the higher-seeded team.
What people said
Oh, sheeesh🤌🤌🤌
Kurihara, he actually did it!!!!!☝
Cut the Zakoshishou act (a comedian famous for his over-the-top catchphrases)
That's gonna leave a trauma scar
They were the 2-seed, so it's not that bad
But if the 1-seed got hit with this, that'd be unbearable
That's the one where Uehara lost it lol
If they'd won yesterday there was still maybe a 20% shot of advancing, but that loss sealed it
Wasn't the pre-series math like a 0.000001% chance of advancing anyway?
By the numbers it's overwhelmingly Kondo
But for raw impact, it's Kurihara
He's got the looks too, so probably Kurihara
Shinjo, honestly
In a way
Beat the Hawks, Fighters!
Beat the Hawks, Fighters!
Thank you, thank you, Lions
Thank you, thank you, Lions
Thank you, thank you, Lions
Serves you right — FOUR of 'em!
Serves you right — FOUR of 'em!
They're just SoftBank's lapdogs, hoping to fluke their way to a title instead of actually trying to win it
'Let him walk' my ass, free agency is the player's right…
They've picked up a free agent every single year for the past several years, you know
Getting swept 3 straight doesn't really scream 'hype' though
Something about them just makes the team look weaker
Nothing to do with it
It's just a talent gap
Don't talk like Yano-sensei (a running joke about blaming uniforms for losses)
Uniform design doesn't decide wins and losses
The Dragons' road uniforms are hideous too — no matter how generous you are, it screams 'scrub mob character'
What a blunder
Credit to Kurihara for actually capitalizing on it in that spot
It was a bases-loaded strategy, so even a walk was off the table — ended on a garbage first pitch
Once the top seed banked that 2-win advantage, there was no chance anyway — so the best move for the 2-seed was to just lose after 3 games, and for the 3-seed after 2
Advancing to the Final Stage just means getting dragged along for their public circle-jerk
Honestly you could argue they don't even need the regular season either
The Lions won the league two years running but still couldn't make the Japan Series
Buffaloes fans keep saying that
Nobody's interested in Orix, so you might wanna drop it
When you realize you need position players and pitchers on that level just to be competitive, the bar is way too high
That, and the gap in managers
Yamamoto and Yoshida were part of it, sure
But the biggest factor was the curse that was Manager Fujimoto
Losing 12 straight as SoftBank's manager — nobody but Fujimoto could pull that off
It was Kondo up, so putting him on and going after Kurihara wasn't the wrong call itself
Though honestly, even pitching to Kondo probably just ends in a routine RBI hit or a fly out anyway
Context and Key Talking Points
Japan’s professional baseball Climax Series (CS) format gives the regular-season first-place team a built-in advantage in both game count and a head-start win, so the thread’s sarcastic line that “the best move for the 2-seed is to lose after 3 games, and for the 3-seed after 2” echoes a long-running criticism that the format tilts too heavily in favor of the top-seeded club. The debate over Kosuke Kondo versus Ryoya Kurihara for Pacific League MVP similarly reflects a recurring split in how fans weigh the award — full-season statistics versus the sheer impact of a clutch moment. That said, the back-and-forth over managerial decisions and uniform designs stayed mostly in the realm of fan impressions and rival-team banter rather than anything backed by actual performance data.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (“Anything Goes Live” board) thread “SB Kurihara’s Walk-Off Grand Slam LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.”
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