Baseball: Hawks power past Fighters, advance to Climax Series final stage

The SoftBank Hawks powered past the Nippon Ham Fighters 5-2 on Monday, with five solo home runs from their red-hot batting lineup helping them advance to the final stage of the Pacific League Climax Series.A day after the Fighters evened the best-of-three first stage at Yafuoku Dome, the Hawks improved to 2-1 and moved into the final stage for the fifth straight year. SoftBank will face the PL champion Seibu Lions at MetLife Dome starting Wednesday.Alfredo Despaigne led the Hawks offense with back-to-back homers. His home run off right-hander Toshihiro Sugiura (0-1) broke a 1-1 fourth innin…READ FULL ARTICLE