It’s been a long season, has it not? The truth of the matter is, the team looked pretty good during the first half of the “Road of Death” August schedule, while yours truly was away on vacation, but soon thereafter played absolutely pathetic baseball. I’m not sure “pathetic” covers it. From August 19 onwards, they…
On Saturday afternoon, Western League champion Hanshin Tigers faced off against the Eastern League’s best team, the Yomiuri Giants, for the rights to be called the top farm squad of 2018. Despite both teams having won a number of pennants in the past, they apparently never once faced each other in this showdown until this…
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…
Wow, that was some break between baseball games! The Tigers sat on the sidelines for the past three days, waiting for the rains to stop and the flooding threat to go away. At long last on Sunday night, they started their “series” against the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. Unfortunately, the bats stayed in their holsters much…
The Tigers came back to Koshien on Tuesday and laid an egg against the Chunichi Dragons on Tuesday. The weather was gloomy after that, too, and it looked as though the rest of the series would be rained out… but somehow they squeezed in the game on Wednesday. Speaking of squeezes, everyone’s favorite catcher came…
The Hanshin Tigers received great news on Monday, as ninth year import pitcher Randy Messenger was named to his first ever all-star team. He was also joined by Kento Itohara (first time) and Yuta Iwasada (second time). Yoshio Itoi was voted in by the players. (Unfortunately, Itoi has been diagnosed with a broken bone in…
The Tokyo Yakult Swallows had an incredible interleague mini-season. In fact, they became just the second Central League team to finish with a better record than all PL teams. They looked to parlay that momentum into a spot near the top of the CL standings, but if the Tigers have their way, it will be…
Life as a Tigers fan had been pretty depressing for much of June. Surprisingly, one of the few teams we’ve had success against this season is the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. Thanks to them (really, thanks to some untimely errors) we were able to put that 5-game losing streak behind us. SWEEP! Game 66: Brought to…
We faced these Carp right after interleague in 2016. Lost three straight. We faced these Carp right after interleague in 2017. Lost two and had one rain out. History repeats itself. Friday: 3-5 Saturday: 3-11 Sunday: 6-11 You wanna read more about the series in which we never held the lead once? Scored one run in the…
The Kansai Derby always seems to be interesting. This year, it was the Orix Buffaloes turn to “hit the road” and come over to Koshien. The series was delayed thanks to a rainout on Wednesday (June 6), and the rubber match wasn’t played until two weeks after it was originally scheduled. The way it was played,…