If you’ve been a Tigers fan for some time now, you know that every loss against the Giants feels like a series sweep, and every win feels like a playoff victory. So imagine how the fans at Koshien felt on Wednesday when, before the end of the third inning, the team was down by 5…
After two straight losses in Yokohama, it was nice to return to Koshien for a series… against the… first place (?) Hiroshima Carp? The good news is, the Carp aren’t in first place anymore, thanks to some clutch hitting from our guys on Tuesday and Wednesday. The bad news is, our pitching did not show…
The weather in Hiroshima was not great this week. The farm boys had a road trip out that way, too, and had two games called due to rain. The top squad only did a half-game better. Tuesday’s game was played to completion (and what a game it was!), but Wednesday got called before it even…
If you are a new fan and are not particularly familiar with the team, let this be your introduction! We are going to break down the entire roster for you very briefly so you can get a feel for who is whom, what they have done, and what they might do in 2023 and beyond….
Let’s not kid ourselves. The Yakult Swallows delivered a powerful message to our team tonight. “Walk us, and we’ll hit multiple-run home runs. We are the champions. You finished below .500 this year. Good luck.” Starter Yuki Nishi did himself no favors by putting plenty of men on base and then letting most of them…
Going back to Game 1 of this series, the Hanshin Tigers hadn’t scored a run in 13 straight innings heading into this one. The Baystars took a two-run lead after three innings (which included 2 Tigers errors, plus a wild pitch). The momentum was completely in their favor. It looked like our season would be…
Those 26 shutout losses during the regular season were no fluke. Today, the Hanshin Tigers managed just two hits, did not earn a single free pass, and struck out 14 times (against a pitcher-generous umpire, mind you). The first of those hits was a single by Koji Chikamoto that saw him thrown out trying to…
Thanks to the Yakult Swallows beating the Hiroshima Carp on September 29 and 30, they were eliminated from the playoff race. Then the Yokohama DeNA Baystars beat the Yomiuri Giants on October 1, which mathematically eliminated the orangemen. This meant neither was our final game must-win, nor were any of the other two CL games…
Not much to say here. The starters did their jobs quite well but the bats did not show up all weekend. Koji Chikamoto hit the team’s only two extra-base hits and drove in two of the three runs that the offense scored. The lead over the Giants for third place is down to two games…
The Tigers have now participated in 41 games in which one team or the other has been shut out. Unfortunately, they have been on the wrong end of that 23 times, including six times at Kyocera Dome in just 9 home games there. Nevertheless, they avoided a series sweep with a solid performance from starter…