This was a must-win game, given that the Giants had the night off… and Joe Gunkel was up to the task of leading the team to victory. He scattered six hits over his seven innings of shutout ball, walking none and striking out five. Meanwhile, the top of the order put up points every time…
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…
Takumi Akiyama did not look like himself again. He now has as many walks in his last two outings (5) as he had in his first seven. Still, he kept the damage to a minimum, thanks in large part to UZR king Koji Chikamoto’s superior range in center. Meanwhile, the bats found all the gaps,…
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 truth is, the Hanshin Tigers *do* (kind of) have an alibi and reason for being U-G-L-Y for the second straight game. The starter today was supposed to be Joe Gunkel, but he had a migraine and sore throat this morning, and was sent to the hospital for a PCR test. It came back negative…
This one was ugly. Well, through five innings, it was actually quite fun to watch! And watch it, we did, H-TEN + Patreon-style! But a combination of shaky pitching (including a gruesome injury to Keisuke Kobayashi), untimely errors, bad base running and silent bats in the second half meant that the defending champions walked all…
Interleague is upon us, and this game started off on a very poor note. It looked like Yuki Nishi was going to continue his month-long struggle. He didn’t. And our import bats (Jefry Marte & Jerry Sands) produced three runs early in the game, which made the outlook quite promising. However, their import bats also…
Despite seeing the Giants set up runners on the corners in multiple innings on this night, Masashi Itoh got himself out of many jams. However, he definitely did not have his best stuff. Luckily, super-rookie Teruaki Sato looked ready to carry his teammate, even the entire team, on his broad shoulders. His first two at-bats…
I’m pretty sure most Tigers fans were thinking the same thing as I was heading into this weekend series. Even in the worst-case scenario, we will return to Kansai in first place. Given the team’s recent history at Tokyo Dome, it is hard to blame fans for fearing the worst but hoping for the best….