Shortly after the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers finished up the longest game in World Series history Saturday morning, the championship series of professional ball in Japan got underway — and ended in a 12-inning tie.
The Hiroshima Carp and Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks played to a 2-2, 12-inning tie Saturday in the first game of the Japan Series.
In the Japan Series, games are called draws after 12 innings. If the series is tied after seven games, a Game 8 is played, and games continue until one team has won four games.
The Carp and Hawks played for 4 hours and 38 minutes, compared to the 7 hours and 20 minutes of Game 3 of the World Series, won by the Dodgers on a Max Muncy homer in the 18th.
The Carp scored twice in the first on a Ryosuke Kikuchi homer and a Ryuhei Matsuyama RBI single and were held scoreless the rest of the way.
Cuban-born Alfredo Despaigne had the only RBI for SoftBank, which also scored a run on an error.