The team giving us the biggest fits this year is the team that has struggled the most with run production. That said, the Hiroshima Carp have an outstanding pitching staff, to the point that they entered this series just 1.5 games out of first place. They figured out Shoki Murakami early and often in the…
It would not have been too hard to predict the Tigers taking two of three against the Dragons, even if they are not typically good at Vantelin Dome. They played Tuesday at a countryside ballpark, where the Tigers normally do well. And they were doing alright there, on schedule to win, until a fatal error…
Hosts T-Ray and Sanjay fill your ears with team news, the import report, a farm round-up, all the latest Tigers baseball action, our Players of the Month for March/April, and talk about which respects our team is better (and worse) than the competition. All that and more! Check out Koji Chikamoto’s new endeavor, mentioned at…
For the second straight Monday, a game between the Tiger and Carp was called due to inclement weather. For myself, personally, this was a big-time bummer because I was at Koshien Stadium with a crew from CNN (yes, THE CNN) and we were to film footage of fans and so on from the actual game…
After winning the Koshien opener against the Hiroshima Carp on April 9, the Tigers dropped two in a row to the red helmets. So it was only fair that we went into their barn and left their fans feeling ripped off. Monday’s game was rained out, but Tuesday saw the Tigers bats come to life…
After the rather embarrassing opening series in Tokyo against these same Giants (25 straight innings without a run), the Tigers’ pride was on the line for this, the first home set of 2024 against their longtime rivals. They continued to struggle with run production, but the pitching trio of Shoki Murakami, Masashi Itoh, and Yuki…
The good news is that the Hanshin Tigers won their 2024 Koshien debut (on a cold night, I might add). The bad news is that in three games, they managed just three runs (two of them coming in a blowout loss). They now have lost three of their first four sets of the year. Heating…
Last season, that magical season that saw the Tigers win the Japan Series, started with a three-game sweep at Kyocera Dome against these same Yokohama DeNA Baystars. That hot start propelled the team to the top of the standings, where they stayed for the better part of the season. This year things did not go…
On Tuesday night (November 28) in Tokyo, Nippon Professional Baseball held its annual awards ceremony to recognize excellent players and their contributions to the game. Here’s how it went down for our Hanshin Tigers. Matsutaro Shoriki Award: Akinobu Okada Central League MVP: Shoki Murakami Central League Rookie of the Year: Shoki Murakami Central League Best…
A loss is a loss, so there is no point in complaining about what seemed from these biased eyes to be an inconsistent strike zone. Normally steady Shoki Murakami walked two (on close calls) and Yuki Nishi walked one on a questionable call, while Yoshinobu Yamamoto got the benefit of several calls the other way…