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…
* Check out the news from the 1st Cool, the 2nd Cool, the 3rd Cool, the 4th Cool or the 5th Cool if you want to look back on the month of February. In case you missed it, “cool” is not a correct transcription of the Japanese クール (which comes from the French cours = course / installment / season),…
* If you’ve read the reports for the 1st Cool, the 2nd Cool, or the 3rd Cool, you know this already. For those of you who are new to H-TEN… The Japanese use the word クール (from the French cours = course / installment / season) to divide the spring training sessions into parts. But since…
Hanshin Tigers 2015 Round 1 draft pick Shun Takayama (OF) has won the Central League Rookie of the Year Award. He received 220 out of a possible 269 points and becomes the first Tiger to win the prize since 2007, when pitcher Keiji Uezono took it home. He becomes the ninth Tiger in club history…
Every loss stings a little. And with the season winding down and the pennant already decided, the only thing left was to see if the Tigers could sweep this one and keep the Grim Reaper waiting around a little while longer. The pounding on the door was in fact the angel of death. Game 134…
Five straight losses. Against teams that are beatable. Three at home, and two on the road with your best pitchers starting. Could it get any worse for the Tigers? The only good news was that they would host the Yokohama DeNA BayStars, who had a rough August and who have struggled against our Tigers. But…
At long last, the Tigers could play on their home field. The high schoolers were long gone and the Kansai region was anxious to be able to cheer on their home team – especially in light of the 4-game winning streak and the ever-heating-up playoff race. Could the Tigers claw their way up into third,…
We take two steps forward and one step back. One step forward and then two back. The Hanshin Tigers have been within a game of .500 since May 11 – an incredible stretch in which there has been no winning or losing streak longer than two games. After nine games on the road, the team came…
Last season, the Hanshin Tigers “won” the interleague season… in that they took home the best record of any of the Central League teams. Of course, in a mini-season dominated by Pacific League teams, there was no hope for them to win it outright, but a 10-8 record (including a stellar 8-1 at home) was…
It was great to see many of the players up closely during the first week of spring training down in Okinawa last week. After terrible bouts with illness, I am finally ready to start processing what I saw and share it with you all. Part 1 was about the fielders (catchers excluded), this one will…