The Hanshin Tigers and Yomiuri Giants have a long, bitter rivalry, and every year the two clubs try to pump up the season’s matchups with colorful ads on which the words 伝統の一戦 (Legendary/Classic Series) appear. But last year the Tigers won just 2 of 13 at Tokyo Dome, and this year so far, they brought…
Five straight losses. Against teams that are beatable. Three at home, and two on the road with your best pitchers starting. Could it get any worse for the Tigers? The only good news was that they would host the Yokohama DeNA BayStars, who had a rough August and who have struggled against our Tigers. But…
The Hanshin Tigers started their 2015 season with one goal: winning the Central League pennant in their memorial 80th year as a franchise. Despite finishing 7 games behind the champion Yomiuri Giants and just a half game ahead of the Hiroshima Carp in 2014, the team made no significant offseason moves. In fact, officials pointed…
Yes, I’m a teacher, and while I don’t necessarily agree with the grading system, I do believe in evaluation. As we have a few days off here, I figure it’s time to look at how the team has performed up to this point. I’ll start with the position players today, then look at the starters…
It must have been getting lonely at the top. The Hanshin Tigers were the lone Central League team with a winning record heading into the last series of June, and they were riding a 7-game undefeated streak that stretched back to the middle of the month. Their best hitters were heating up, and their starters…
The Tigers played their second of two 2-game sets to open up the post-interleague schedule. This time, they traveled to the “Hokuriku” region to play a couple of true road games: the first in Nagano, the second in Toyama. With just 0.5 games separating them from the Giants for the league lead, but also with…
Let’s look back on the past 3 weeks, in which we played against the six Pacific League teams. We’ll go through the numbers, starting with… 0 – The number of runs allowed in 24 innings pitched by Randy Messenger. He shut out the Saitama Seibu Lions for 7 innings, then the Nippon Ham Fighters for 8,…
Keep in mind, reader, that I love the Tigers, despite my harsh words. I want them to succeed, reach their potential, win games, even championships. This is not a series recap, and there will be no series recap this time around. The Tigers’ play is not worthy of being retold. In fact, I question whether…
While sweeping the Lotte Marines would have been ideal, winning the last two of the series was enough to give the Tigers a little momentum and confidence heading into the hardest part of the interleague schedule. They would host the first place Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters over the weekend, and are scheduled to wrap up…