With nine interleague wins and a weekend of clear skies in the forecast, it looked like the Tigers would have a couple of good things going for them as they headed back to league play: 1) A winning record against the stronger Pacific League; and 2) With no rain dates to make up, four straight…
← Click here for a team profile Playing against these SoftBank Hawks is never easy. Though Hanshin seldom faces them, the head-to-head record isn’t too impressive (see below). But not only that, they have beaten the Tigers in the Nippon Series three times: in 1964 as the Nankai Hawks, in 2003 as the Daiei Hawks,…
← Click on the logo for a team profile! Returning home after a crushing defeat in Game 3 of the Lotte series, Hanshin needed to regroup quickly and continue to build up some credit against the weaker Pacific League teams. Yes, it is weird to call the defending champions “weaker” but the truth is, aside…
Hanshin needed a big series against an opponent that had been relatively easy to beat up to this point this season. Unfortunately, extremely poor fielding cost the team two of three at Koshien, and the team finds itself out of first place heading into Interleague play. Game 44 – Friday 5/26. (Kuru)Shintaro Strikes Balls Bawls…
Vs. Chunichi Dragons @ Koshien Stadium Hanshin faced lefties Valdes (Tuesday), Jordan (Wednesday) and Ohno (Thursday) the last time these teams met earlier this month. With starters usually pitching the same day of the week (6 man rotation and Mondays off), one would have expected to face completely different guys this time around, But… Game…
Last season, Hanshin won just 5 of 13 matches in Nagoya against the dismal Chunichi Dragons. But the hard times at the dome go back further than one season. In the 20 years of the Dome’s existence, Hanshin has put up a pitiful 82-153-5 record there. So there’s no doubt that expecting a sweep, no matter how…
The last time Hanshin won a 3-game series against the red helmets was almost a year ago. Since then, nothing but misery. Errors, defense, pitching, hitting, everything cost us at least a game or two. And despite winning the season opener against the Carp, not only did we drop the next two (one in which…
Rare is the day that the Hanshin Tigers baseball game is not broadcast on a local TV station. Almost as rare is the day that a game will be broadcast in its entirety. Perhaps this is because of the early start times (6:00pm, which I suppose is when the news is supposed to be on),…
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…
* 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 クール is usually used to mean “cool” I have turned it into a cool headline. Hope the クール factor isn’t lost on you! Happy Valentine’s Day, my western world friends! Today…