Seiichi Uchikawa and Akira Nakamura homered for the second straight day as the SoftBank Hawks moved to within a hair of reaching the Japan Series by beating the Rakuten Eagles 4-3 on Saturday.

The Game 4 win in the Pacific League Climax Series' six-game final stage lifted the Hawks to a 3-2 lead -- as league champs, they begin the series in their home park with a one-win advantage.

Trailing by a run in the sixth, Uchikawa greeted new reliever Sung Chia-hao by drilling his third pitch over the distant outfield wall. It was his sixth career postseason home run, and made him the first player to homer in four straight Climax Series games.

Nakamura, whose two-run, eighth-inning homer lifted the Hawks to their first victory on the field in this series the night before, followed with a solo blast to put SoftBank ahead.

"I got a fastball and just tried to square it up," Uchikawa said. "I'm a bit surprised at this. If I knew why this was happening, you can bet I'd hit more in the regular season."

Livan Moinelo, the Hawks third reliever of the game, overcame a leadoff single in the seventh to work 1-2/3 scoreless innings. But with right-handed-hitting Mexican slugger Japhet Amador up with two outs in the eighth, manager Kimiyasu Kudo turned the game over to closer Dennis Sarfate.

Sarfate, who saved a record 54 games this season fanned Amador, who had homered in two of the series' first three games and turned the volume up on the crowd of 37,455 to maximum.

The right-hander struck out the first two batters in the ninth before issuing a walk on a 3-2 pitch. With pinch runner Louis Okoye on second after a steal, Sarfate struck out potent Eagles shortstop Eigoro Mogi to end it.

"You come into a game like that with these fans, I was pumped up," Sarfate said. I'm just trying not to blow the game. It's my little girl's birthday. Hawks win, great present."

Staked to a two-run lead, Hawks starter Rick van den Hurk blew that lead when two fourth-inning fastballs missed their mark. Trying to go outside with his 1-0 pitch, van den Hurk instead left a straight 150-kilometer-per fastball middle in and Ginji Akaminai slugged it.

The ball sailed into the home run terrace in front of the right field wall to halve the Hawks' lead, and Zelous Wheeler followed with a walk to restart the Eagles offense. After a sacrifice and a deep fly to center moved him to third, Wheeler scored on a wild pitch when van den Hurk bounced a fastball.

A pair of two-out walks in the fifth put the go-ahead run in scoring position for Wheeler, who drove in his fourth run of the postseason with a double and drove van den Hurk from the mound.

The Hawks had jumped on Takayuki Kishi in the second, when Uchikawa singled and scored on a two-out Yuya Hasegawa double. Alfredo Despaigne made it 2-0 in the third with his first home run of the postseason.

Because the higher-seeded team in every stage can advance if the series ends in a tie, the Hawks will advance to the Japan Series even if they can only manage a tie on Sunday or Monday.