The first repeat since the two-league split
In 2026, Kyuji Fujikawa's second year as manager, the Hanshin Tigers went 79-62 with 2 ties in 143 games for a .560 winning percentage and won the Central League for the second straight year and the eighth time overall. They finished 2.5 games ahead of second-place Yomiuri. Unlike 2025, when they won 85 games and finished 13.0 games clear, they had to fight Yomiuri for the title to the end. Hanshin has won the Central League eight times, in 1962, 1964, 1985, 2003, 2005, 2023, 2025 and 2026, and this was the first time it won in consecutive years. In his statement on the day of the clinch, NPB Commissioner Sadayuki Sakakibara praised Fujikawa for leading "a powerful lineup built around an unshakable cleanup trio, a steady rotation and a bullpen marked by the rise of young pitchers." Attendance for the 72 home games was 2,998,391, an average of 41,644 per game, both the highest among the 12 clubs.
A losing interleague record and the October 3 clinch
Hanshin went 6-12 in interleague play against the Pacific League and lost all three games each to SoftBank, Seibu and Nippon-Ham. Against the five other Central League clubs, however, the Tigers went 73-50 with 2 ties and had a winning record against every one of them. Against title rival Yomiuri they went 16-8 with 1 tie, eight games over .500. The title was decided on October 3. With the magic number at 1, Hanshin trailed Hiroshima by a run at Mazda Stadium when Seishiro Sakamoto tied the game with a solo homer in the third, and Teruaki Sato put them ahead with a three-run shot. Hiroshima tied it in the bottom of the inning, scored two in the eighth and won 6-4. On the same day, however, second-place Yomiuri lost 5-2 to DeNA at Tokyo Dome, and Hanshin clinched the pennant.
Teruaki Sato's Triple Crown and Shota Morishita
The Tigers' 125 home runs tied DeNA for the league lead, their 447 walks and .317 on-base percentage were the best in the league, and their 518 runs ranked second behind DeNA's 557. Teruaki Sato was the center of the lineup. He led the league with a .306 average, 39 home runs and 106 RBIs to win the Triple Crown. He finished 13 points ahead of Yakult's Shu Masuda in average, four homers ahead of Shota Morishita and 21 RBIs ahead of Yusuke Ohyama, the runners-up. Sato played all 143 games and also led the league with 100 runs, 165 hits, 40 doubles and a .609 slugging percentage. In 2025, when he won the home run and RBI titles, he hit .277 with a .345 on-base percentage, and in 2026 he raised those by 29 and 38 points. A Baseball Channel column (October 12, 2026) named Sato as the biggest driving force behind the repeat, writing that he did not let the previous year's "awakening" become a one-off and kept showing his "evolution." Morishita led the league with a .394 on-base percentage, and his 35 home runs were second only to Sato and his 84 RBIs third. Their combined 74 homers made up nearly 60 percent of the team's 125. Ohyama ranked second in RBIs with 85 and led the league with 10 sacrifice flies, and Takumu Nakano played all 143 games and led the league with 27 sacrifice bunts.
Three starters' titles and the bullpen
The team ERA of 2.79 led the league, just under Yomiuri's 2.80, and the 439 runs allowed were the fewest in the league. In the rotation, Haruto Takahashi went 16-3 with a 1.87 ERA in 23 games. His 16 wins led the league by four over the runner-up's 12, and his .842 winning percentage, five complete games and four shutouts were also league bests. In 2025, Takahashi had won three games in eight appearances. Shoki Murakami went only 10-9 in 27 games but won the ERA title at 1.85, 0.02 below Takahashi, and also led the league with 180 1/3 innings. Hiroto Saiki went 10-5 in 25 games and led the league with 175 strikeouts, with Murakami second at 155. Three homegrown starters shared the main pitching titles. Sportswriter Akira Hiroo wrote in a PRESIDENT Online article (October 22, 2026) that it was "as if there were three pitchers who would be aces on other teams." In the bullpen, Rafael Dolis recorded 19 saves in 53 games, Taisei Kudo had 12 saves, 13 holds and a 1.05 ERA in 57 games, and Suguru Iwazaki had 11 saves and 19 holds in 50 games. Kudo went from 18 appearances in 2025 to 57 and lowered his ERA from 3.31 to 1.05. Daichi Ishii, who threw 50 straight scoreless appearances in 2025, pitched in only 12 games.
Four straight Climax Series losses
The final stage of the Climax Series opened at Koshien on October 14, and Hanshin hosted DeNA. In Game 1 the Tigers collected seven hits but lost 2-0, then lost Game 2 on the 15th by 1-0 and Game 3 on the 16th by 4-0, failing to score in three straight games. In Game 4 on the 17th, two home runs by Morishita helped them to a 5-3 lead after seven innings, but they gave up one run in the eighth and four in the ninth and lost 8-5. Hanshin lost all four games of the final stage and did not reach the Japan Series. Of Kudo, the losing pitcher in that game, Hiroo wrote in the same article that "his performance this season was splendid."