Photos courtesy of Tim Herr Kris Johnson won the Sawamura Award last year and gave up just 7 earned runs to the Hanshin Tigers all season. (He did even better against the Dragons and Giants, but let’s leave that aside for now.) The defending champion Hiroshima Carp looked to start their season with a triumphant…
The Japanese title of this book is 眠れないほど面白い野球の見方 – How to watch baseball, so interesting you won’t be able to sleep. I bought it thinking that it would give some insights into what to watch while a baseball game is going on. Things outside of the usual pitching, hitting, base running. You know, maybe catcher’s…
T-Ray invites 9 guests to the show to give their Central League final standings predictions. T-Ray also gives predictions about which player will lead the team in each big category. Who do you have leading the Tigers in batting average, home runs, runs batted in, stolen bases, wins, earned run average, and saves? Send us…
Yes, that’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Last season, if you’ll recall, I did an informal “Fantasy Tigers” league with two of my friends. We drafted almost all the Tigers players, and kept track of first squad and farm stats to determine a winning manager. It was a little too simplistic, and lost its excitement when…
T-Ray presents you the past week of preseason action, and talks about who should make the Opening Day 28-man roster. He also presents three possible hitting orders, including one for when injured players come back. What’s your ideal batting order look like? Send us an e-mail (thehanshintigers@gmail.com) with your opinion. Also, in preparation for Episode…
Over the years, Hanshin has been known as a big spending baseball club. This is true to an extent, with the team consistently ranking in the top half of the salary rankings. It looks like this coming season, the team will rank #3, well behind the top two clubs, Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and Yomiuri Giants….
There just aren’t a lot of good books out there (in English) about Japanese baseball. But for anyone wondering what the game was like 25 years ago, this primer by Brian Maitland is a decent way to spend a couple of hours in the offseason. Written in 1991, the book covers everything you would want to…
Yesterday, we had a look at the battle for playing time on the pitching staff. Today, we continue our look at the Tigers’ lineup and who can be expected to stand on the field and in the batter’s box at the start of 2017. In case you missed it, Fumihito Haraguchi has been given the…
Hanshin has finished its “Koshien” home portion of the exhibition schedule, and will not play on its hallowed grounds again until April 7 (vs. Giants, games 7-9 of the regular season). For now, it sees itself playing at Kyocera Dome (Osaka) for 2 before heading out on the road for 6, then returning back to Kyocera…
My worst subject in school was history. By a long shot. I could memorize the numbers and dates without a problem, but I couldn’t get excited about what people did centuries before I was born. Masaru Ikei’s book 白球太平洋を渡る (White Ball Crosses the Pacific) is a history book in the truest sense. I bet if…