The Marines went back on the road tonight for a 3 game set with 5th place Softbank in Fukuoka, hoping to continue the momentum from last night’s sayonara victory.

Alas, it was not to be. Lotte starter Ono gave up 6 ER in 6 innings, including a pair of HRs to Softbank slugger Matsunaka (for 5 RBI) to take a 6-2 loss. Lotte managed to score only 2 runs off of 10 hits against Hawks starter Wada and 3 Hawks relievers.

It’s obviously a disappointing result for a team with a chance to jump into 5th place tonight. Really, the only positives on the evening were Ohmatsu finally breaking out of his awful slump with a single in the 9th and Kawasaki battling through 3 walks in the 8th to yield no runs and lower his season ERA to a bit above 11. I’m not even sure if I am serious about that being a positive or not!