FUKUOKA (Kyodo) -- Anthony Kay threw seven shutout innings, and Tyler Austin homered to lead the Central League's DeNA BayStars to their eighth postseason road win, 5-0 over the Pacific League champion SoftBank Hawks on Wednesday to even the Japan Series at two games apiece.

After dropping Games 1 and 2 at home, the BayStars are 2-0 at the Hawks' Mizuho PayPay Dome in Fukuoka. Including the postseason, DeNA is now 34-39 at home but 45-34 on the road.

"There's no explaining it. It's weird," said Austin who is battling a foot injury as DeNA's designated hitter. "The noise, and things like that, doesn't bother us."

On the heels of seven innings of one-run ball from DeNA ace Katsuki Azuma on Tuesday, Kay held Japan's top offense scoreless for seven innings.

"This was the first time I faced these guys, so I just went after them, and it seemed like they didn't really adjust to the off-speed stuff, so I just threw two-seams and four-seams inside and sliders and cutters off of that," the left-hander said.

Kay easily retired the first nine batters he faced, striking out six of them, and Austin gave him a 1-0 lead with a fourth-inning home run off Hawks right-hander Shuta Ishikawa before DeNA broke the game open in the seventh against SoftBank's bullpen.

With Ishikawa out of the game, Toshiro Miyazaki homered to open the big inning. Masayuki Kuwahara, who homered to break up a 1-1 tie in DeNA's 4-1 Game 3 victory, doubled in two, and Austin completed the carnage with an RBI single.

Austin, who has been hurting since fouling a ball off his foot in Game 1, singled in the second and opened the scoring in the fourth with a good swing on a fastball that ran onto the barrel of his bat, launching it into the dome's "home run terrace" in right for an opposite-field homer.

Ishikawa allowed four hits and walked none while striking out four. With the exception of Austin, he had little trouble negotiating the BayStars' lineup and left when the DeNA designated hitter came up with two outs and a runner on in the sixth.

Reliever Shuto Ogata struck out Austin to end the inning, and rookie Yoshiyasu Sasagawa singled to open SoftBank's sixth, when Kay issued a one-out walk and looked vulnerable for the first time. But Kay stranded two runners, retiring PL home run leader Hotaka Yamakawa with a changeup.

"I only threw him one fastball all game and he hit it pretty hard," Kay said. "I was lucky he hit it into a glove."

Game 5 will be in Fukuoka on Thursday before the series returns to Yokohama on Saturday for Game 6.