2010 Japan Series | |||||||||||||
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Dates | October 30 – November 7 | ||||||||||||
MVP | Toshiaki Imae (Marines) | ||||||||||||
FSA | Kazuhiro Wada (Dragons) | ||||||||||||
Broadcast | |||||||||||||
Television |
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TV announcers |
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Team (Wins) | Manager | Season | |
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Chiba Lotte Marines (4) | Norifumi Nishimura | 75–67–2, .528, GB: 2.5 | |
Chunichi Dragons (2) | Hiromitsu Ochiai | 79–62–3, .560, GA: 1 |
The 2010 Japan Series was the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) championship series for the 2010 season. It was the 61st Japan Series and featured the Pacific League champions, the Chiba Lotte Marines, against the Central League champions, the Chunichi Dragons.
CL Chunichi Dragons (2) vs. PL Chiba Lotte Marines (3)
In what was a roller coaster of a year for seemingly the entire Pacific League, the Chiba Lotte Marines finished third in the league behind the second-place Saitama Seibu Lions and the first-place Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. In the first round, Lotte earned the nickname "Miracle Marines" after pulling off two extra-inning wins, the first of which came thanks to a four-run 9th inning comeback against Seibu. Lotte continued their comeback trend after rallying from a 3-games-to-1 deficit against the Hawks to win the Pacific League title, their first since 2005.
The team was led by a rookie manager, former player Norifumi Nishimura. Many of the team's components from the 2005 championship year were still in place, as Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Toshiaki Imae, Saburo Ohmura, and Kazuya Fukuura were all still in the lineup and contributing. New faces littered the pitching staff and the lineup, as Yoshihisa Naruse won 13 games and was the ace of the staff, but the Marines true pitching strength came from the back end of the bullpen, with one-time Major Leaguer Yasuhiko Yabuta, Takuya Furuya and Tatsuya Uchi all were potent middle relievers, setting up for starter-turned-closer Hiroyuki Kobayashi.