Takumi Akiyama put his best foot forward, but one bad pitch cost him in the sixth. Teruaki Sato continues to wow the nation, getting multiple hits, including another home run (tying him for second-highest rookie total in team history with Akinobu Okada). The rest of the team? Well, they created a few good scoring chances,…
The Tigers had a seven-game lead over the Giants heading into this weekend tilt. They put seven runs up on the scoreboard in the first one-third of the game, pushing their winning streak to seven and shoving the Giants down into third place. But we all know that there is still plenty of season left,…
For just the second time in 2021 (I think), the Hanshin Tigers game was not on network TV in Kansai. As a result, I have very little to say about this game except that Koyo Aoyagi pitched a gem, allowing just one earned run in eight innings, and Jefry Marte hit the go-ahead two-run home…
A solid outing from starter Raul Alcantara ended prematurely with a single to the shin, but he still threw six shutout innings and the bats came through at a fairly constant pace. Takumu Nakano led the way with two hits, including the opening RBI single in the fifth. The Tigers won all three against the…
There were not a whole lot of hits in this one for our Tigers. As for our pitchers, they simply weathered the “storm” of singles and bunts. While not a Koshien walk-off win (as he did in 2019), Fumihito Haraguchi provided the late-game heroics with an RBI double in the top of the ninth that…
The forecast heading into today called for rain all day, and it looked like Koyo Aoyagi was going to fall victim to his 12th career rain-out, including four straight at Koshien Stadium this year alone! But somehow, the rains stopped mid-afternoon and did not come back hard enough to allow us to see Aoyagi pitch…
Should I continue to just pin the blame on the umpires for the Tigers’ losses during interleague? As long as the umps call balls strikes in crucial situations (like two Jefry Marte walks turned into strikeouts), giving Buffaloes’ starter Taisuke Yamaoka liberty to widen the strike zone all night… I reserve the right to do…
After yesterday’s slugfest, fans on both sides of this battle of the felines were looking forward to more long balls and dramatics. Instead, they were treated to a pitchers’ duel that was aided by the umpires calling a very wide strike zone. The result is that Masashi Itoh’s full-count mistake against Hotaka Yamakawa in the…
Takumi Akiyama has a bit of a complex. He knows his stuff is not particularly overpowering. But it was more than enough to get him through the first seven innings of the game allowing just one baserunner: Brandon Laird on a fly ball that had no business letting gravity pull it to the ground. The…
One night, you have Yuki Nishi and the bullpen serving up walks (11), hitting batters (2) and giving up extra-base hits (9). The next night, you have his distant relative, Junya Nishi serving up walks (4), but nothing else. The 19-year-old threw five innings of no-hit ball, and the bullpen protected the no-hitter for another…