This year’s team slogan, announced last November at the team’s annual Fan Appreciation Day, is 執念 Tigers Change 2018. 執念 (shuunen) means “tenacity” and manager Tomoaki Kanemoto was hoping the slogan would give his team that extra push to be tenacious at the plate, on defense, on the mound, in all situations.
But the fact of the matter is, the 2018 Hanshin Tigers changed in the wrong way. The 2017 version of the team made a handful of impressive comebacks and were quite the tenacious bunch. This year, heading into Sunday’s tilt against the Yomiuri Giants, were 0-50 when trailing after seven innings.
In this match, it looked as though they would make it 51 straight. Starter Yuya Iida, acquired from the SoftBank Hawks in a midseason trade for Ryoma Matsuda, surrendered four runs in his three innings of work. The Tigers bats missed a golden chance in the first inning with a bases-loaded, demotion-inducing double play by Wilin Rosario.
The score continued to pile up as mop-up guy Yosuke Okamoto (also acquired in a trade before the season – one that gave the Saitama Seibu Lions a solid starter in Daiki Enokida) gave up two runs, and that was followed by a couple of solo home runs given up by Atsushi Mochizuki and Kentaro Kuwahara.
So heading into the top of the 8th, the team found itself in a five run hole, 3-8. Hirokazu Sawamura was on the mound, and although the Tigers had gotten to him twice already this season, he still sported a 2.77 ERA against our squad in 2018.
But Yusuke Ohyama led off the inning with a single, and Ryutaro Umeno hit his second homer of the game to give us a flicker of hope. This was followed by a Kento Itohara single and two walks on eight pitches. With two outs and the bases juiced, Shunsuke had a chance to keep the rally going or snuff it out. The second pitch he saw, he lofted over the second baseman’s head, and two more runs scored. Buh-bye, Sawamura! The Giants brought in a lefty reliever to face lefty pinch hitter Hayata Itoh, but all he needed was one pitch to smack a drive deep to right. Chono went face first into the wall, and by the time the ball trickled over to the center fielder and came back to the infield, he was on third base and the lead was ours.
🐯８回の表、５点差をひっくり返した大逆転のシーンです❗️ww👏🏻#阪神タイガース #阪神が珍しく大逆転 pic.twitter.com/vsFE7AqpMU
— ⚾️埼とら⚾️今季も怪我無く！ (@yakyuragu) August 26, 2018
And it stayed ours. A huge come-from-behind victory to avoid an embarrassing sweep, avoid a losing road record during the long summer trip away from Koshien, and avoid losing legions of fans.
I’m not sure how many more times the team can pull off wins like this one, but it’s nice to see them finally living up to their manager’s slogan. Shunen at last!