This weekend was a rematch between the last two teams standing in the Central League last season. The Tigers got swept by the Swallows at Jingu to end manager Akihiro Yano‘s tenure with the team. In came new manager Akinobu Okada, who has a great head for the game and is said to be a…
The weather in Hiroshima was not great this week. The farm boys had a road trip out that way, too, and had two games called due to rain. The top squad only did a half-game better. Tuesday’s game was played to completion (and what a game it was!), but Wednesday got called before it even…
A new season is upon us, folks! It is always exciting when Hanshin Tigers baseball is on the telly every day, and we can enjoy seeing our heroes doing what they do best. Going up against the weaker half of the Baystars’ rotation helped. They did not have Imanaga ready, and injuries to Ohnuki and…
The Yokohama DeNA Baystars thought that lining up 8 lefties against Hanshin starter Koyo Aoyagi might help them generate some offense. They were wrong. In fact, they collected just two hits and a walk during Aoyagi’s time on the mound, which was 5 ⅔ innings when all was said and done. He got pulled with…
Starter Koyo Aoyagi pitched his heart out. The team had a 3-0 lead with two outs in the seventh. Two soft infield grounders by the Swallows were our undoing, though. Jefry Marte threw a ball into left, and Masumi Hamachi glove-flipped another into right field, which resulted in a five-run inning for them. Our bats…
Leadoff hitter Takumu Nakano started the game with a triple and our team took its first lead of the series! Then Shintaro Fujinami started the pitching half of the game with three strikeouts. Then… they hit home runs while we hit a bunch of singles and a couple of sacrifice flies. The gap between these…
Let’s not kid ourselves. The Yakult Swallows delivered a powerful message to our team tonight. “Walk us, and we’ll hit multiple-run home runs. We are the champions. You finished below .500 this year. Good luck.” Starter Yuki Nishi did himself no favors by putting plenty of men on base and then letting most of them…
Going back to Game 1 of this series, the Hanshin Tigers hadn’t scored a run in 13 straight innings heading into this one. The Baystars took a two-run lead after three innings (which included 2 Tigers errors, plus a wild pitch). The momentum was completely in their favor. It looked like our season would be…
Those 26 shutout losses during the regular season were no fluke. Today, the Hanshin Tigers managed just two hits, did not earn a single free pass, and struck out 14 times (against a pitcher-generous umpire, mind you). The first of those hits was a single by Koji Chikamoto that saw him thrown out trying to…
Thanks to the Yakult Swallows beating the Hiroshima Carp on September 29 and 30, they were eliminated from the playoff race. Then the Yokohama DeNA Baystars beat the Yomiuri Giants on October 1, which mathematically eliminated the orangemen. This meant neither was our final game must-win, nor were any of the other two CL games…