championship in 44 years, defeating the Chunichi Dragons in five games. Fittingly, Darvish pitched for the win in the final game of the series. The series' MVP honors went to Fighters' outfielder Atsunori Inaba, who hit for a .357 batting average during the series with one home run and six RBIs. The championship win was especially fitting for OF Tsuyoshi Shinjo, who was a longtime veteran of the Hanshin Tigers (who were perennial losers), and also had played for a brief time in the United States' Major League Baseball. It was Shinjo's ultimate desire to win a championship, and he did in the final year of his illustrious career in Japan with Nippon-Ham. This victory gave the Fighters a berth in the four-team Asia Series, in which the team went undefeated in the round-robin and won the final 1–0 over the La New Bears. The 2006 offseason saw the departure of two of Nippon-Ham's best players, both via free agency. First baseman Michihiro Ogasawara was signed to a blockbuster contract with the Yomiuri Giants, and left-handed reliever Hideki Okajima departed to the Boston Red Sox. At the start of the 2007 season, Nippon-Ham had a lot of trouble scoring runs, relying far too much on their pitching, despite the continuing maturation of Yu Darvish, who had back-to-back complete game, 14-strikeout performances early in the season. At one point, Nippon Ham was second-to-last in the Pacific League, but recently has been able to turn it around. With the start of Interleague play, Nippon-Ham began a 14-game winning streak, which ended on June 9 with a 3–2 extra inning loss to the Yakult Swallows, with the bullpen wasting another great performance by Darvish. The Fighters went on to win the Pacific League championship and went through the Climax Series to earn a second consecutive trip to the Japan Series to once again face the Chunichi Dragons. But in a reversal of roles from last year, the Fighters took Game 1, but the Dragons took the next four games to defeat the Fighters; the last of which being a combined perfect game by Dragons pitchers Daisuke Yamai and Hitoki Iwase. In 2007, Yukio Tanaka's final season, he recorded his 2000th career hit, during a May 15 game against the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. The Fighters would win the Pacific League championship again in 2009 and 2012, but they would lose both times in