Somehow in the past month, the Tigers have managed to take away the Hiroshima Carp‘s magic number. Twice. And in the month of August, they managed to cut an 11-game gap between the teams in half. And yet during that time, the team only went 2-3-1 in their head-to-head matches. This three-game set in Hiroshima…
Obon is the time of year that people all across Japan return to their hometowns and pay their respects to their dead relatives/ancestors. Roughly 100,000 fans paid respect to the not-so-alive Hanshin Tigers at Kyocera Dome over the course of these past three days. Game 104 – Tuesday 8/15. O NO! MEN, DEZ NOT GOOD!…
It’s never easy going up against the defending champs. And the Hiroshima Carp have been having their way with opponents of late, having won six straight series, and blowing out three different teams by double digits in the past two weeks. (This includes one against our Tigers at Koshien.) A sweep for us could give…
It was bad enough that the team lost two of three against the Hiroshima Carp earlier this week. The first game was a low-scoring affair, one that our starter dominated for six innings and our relievers held their boots on the jugulars of the CL leaders. But then came two humiliating defeats – falling behind…
This Hiroshima Carp team is strong. Really strong. Though the Tigers entered this series with a slight 6-5 edge in 11 head-to-head games this season, the last two were lopsided enough to make it feel like it’s 2016 all over again. But things would be different in this series, right? I mean, the games are…
While the Carp had a slightly better interleague record than the Tigers, the standings atop the Central were still close heading into this one. Last year at this time, Hanshin opened the post-interleague schedule in Hiroshima with an embarrassing 3-game sweep. Everyone knew that and had revenge in their minds. They did not have it…
Golden Week ended up being quite the golden week for Hanshin. With a stadium full of kids cheering them on, and a scoreboard with every name written in hiragana (syllabic Japanese, much easier for children to read than kanji), the players put on performances that gave every kid in attendance hopes and dreams for their…
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…
The new team slogan for this year is 挑む Tigers Change. 挑む (Idomu) can be translated as “challenge” or “defy” or “dare to try”. After the opening series in Hiroshima, all the Hanshin Tigers seem ready to challenge is the record for most errors in a season. What has changed? The defense has certainly not…
Photos courtesy of Tim Herr Kris Johnson won the Sawamura Award last year and gave up just 7 earned runs to the Hanshin Tigers all season. (He did even better against the Dragons and Giants, but let’s leave that aside for now.) The defending champion Hiroshima Carp looked to start their season with a triumphant…