Although he already had a Japan Series sayonara home run on his resume, Akira Nakamura's post season heroics with the SoftBank Hawks had otherwise been fairly muted, until this month.

On Oct. 20, with the Pacific League champs two games from postseason elimination at the hands of the third-place Rakuten Eagles, Nakamura broke an eighth-inning tie with a two-run homer to power his team to victory. The following day, his sixth-inning homer broke a 3-3 tie in SoftBank's 4-3 win, setting the stage for SoftBank's series-clinching win, when Nakamura scored three of the Hawks' seven runs.

Although one would expect the pressure to be more intense in the Japan Series, Nakamura said he was feeling looser now that the season had reached its climax.

"This is easier and more fun than the Climax Series," he said of Japan's misnamed postseason playoff tournaments to decide the Japan Series contestants.

"The Japan Series is the end, the last seven games that we'll all be competing together this season and I want to savor that," said Nakamura, who had only really savored the moment before on Oct. 29, 2014 with his game-ending three-run homer.

"There is a nervous tension to the Japan Series, of course, but it's not like, 'Oh what will happen if I don't get a hit.' It's more like, 'I really, really want to get a hit. This is going to be fun.'"

In Sunday's Game 2, Nakamura's two-out, two-run, seventh-inning single brought the Hawks from a run down and propelled them to a 4-3 victory over the Central League's DeNA BayStars and a two-game series lead after Kenta Imamiya scored from second on an extremely close play.

"I try to keep things as simple as possible in this situation, since we don't know much about their pitchers and they don't know much about us," Nakamura said. "Just go back to basics.

"I was ready for that situation, however, even while I was waiting in the dugout, I pictured myself batting with two outs and the bases loaded."

Of course his line single wouldn't have put the Hawks ahead had Imamiya been slower to the plate or if the umpires had not overturned the out call at the plate after reviewing the video.

"His base running was superb. It was an inspiration."