It’s been a year, hasn’t it? Without getting into too many details about any of these stories (which have been discussed on the podcast, in the TTT sessions, and in other articles we’ve written), here are the 20 things that defined this year for your Hanshin Tigers. 20. Fourth-string catcher Kenya Nagasaka started his season…
As seen in Daily Sports (Japanese) – トレバーの虎場 As the cold of winter sets in and the long (shortened?) offseason officially gets underway, there are two main things that keep die-hard baseball fans like myself warm. The first is the hot-stove league, which we all gather ‘round and anticipate which players will move to which…
It is that time of year again. After welcoming in 9 new guys via the draft, the team has to part ways with roughly the same number of men. At present, only one will be retiring, while the rest are likely to be looking for work elsewhere. And for a couple of these, that “elsewhere”…
Sources: Daily / Sponichi / Sponichi With the 2020 Amateur Draft coming in less than a week, the Hanshin Tigers have started to declare their intentions concerning players’ contracts for 2021. Among the players not being offered new deals in 2021 are veterans and fan-favourites Kosuke Fukudome (OF, 43) and Atsushi Nohmi (LHP, 41). Fukudome…
It’s been a long season, has it not? The truth of the matter is, the team looked pretty good during the first half of the “Road of Death” August schedule, while yours truly was away on vacation, but soon thereafter played absolutely pathetic baseball. I’m not sure “pathetic” covers it. From August 19 onwards, they…
Life as a Tigers fan had been pretty depressing for much of June. Surprisingly, one of the few teams we’ve had success against this season is the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. Thanks to them (really, thanks to some untimely errors) we were able to put that 5-game losing streak behind us. SWEEP! Game 66: Brought to…
If only it had rained a few more times. This series against the Chiba Lotte Marines came during the heart of rainy season, and in case you missed it, Hanshin is perfect so far this season on days after rainouts. So Friday’s rainout was a good omen, but Monday’s rainout only helped them win their first…
I turned on my TV at 6:30 and the score was 0-6. I turned it off and ate dinner. Turned it back on (oh, but why?) and the score was 0-9. Turned it off for good. Forget the Hanshin Tigers. Nothing can spoil my great mood today. 1st Period It was a winner-take-all scenario in…
Yesterday’s game saw our pitcher walking theirs, and ultimately giving up a home run in the same inning. We couldn’t possibly repeat the same mistake in the very next game. Could we? (Cue the cricket sound effect.) Oh, and that was just one morale killer that came after a defensive mistake. *SIGH* Starting Pitchers: Atsushi…
Today’s game looked really bleak for the Tigers until the bottom of the seventh. Unfortunately, the feeling lasted only a few minutes as things fell apart again the very next inning. Starting Pitchers: Atsushi Nohmi (0-0) vs. Shotaro Kasahara (0-1, 6.00 ERA) 2 Nohmi got bailed out by Yoshio Itoi, who threw out a runner…