It doesn’t seem to matter how either of these teams are faring in the standings. These “Legendary Games” (伝統の一戦) have a special atmosphere, and neither team wants to lose. This is an important time of year for both teams – Hanshin needs to play well on the road and patiently wait for the high schoolers…
Let’s not fool ourselves. The Yakult Swallows are sitting a distant last in the standings, but any given team can win any given game. These Swallows have been playing decent ball of late, having come back from a 10-run deficit last week against the Dragons, and then overcoming a 4-run Giants lead on Thursday night….
Could the annual “Road of Death” road trip start anywhere worse than Nagoya Dome? Our boys have NEVER fared well there, except perhaps the last time we won the pennant, back in 2005. Having been completely humiliated the last time we faced the Chunichi Dragons in their territory, Hanshin needed to take at least two…
This would be the final series that Hanshin plays at Koshien Stadium before the team vacated the premises so the 99th annual National High School baseball tournament could be held here during the first three weeks of August. With a slender 1-game lead on the hard-charging DeNA Yokohama BayStars, the Tigers would need all their…
It’s actually a scary thing to be facing a team that is riding a 13-game losing streak. Because you know that streak will eventually come to an end, and you don’t want to be the team that helps them snap it. The Yakult Swallows last won on June 30th against these very Hanshin Tigers. So…
This Hiroshima Carp team is strong. Really strong. Though the Tigers entered this series with a slight 6-5 edge in 11 head-to-head games this season, the last two were lopsided enough to make it feel like it’s 2016 all over again. But things would be different in this series, right? I mean, the games are…
It’s All-Star Break… no real baseball to watch and analyze, so let’s look at our crop of hitters and give a few brief comments about each of them. What’s your take? Whom do you like at the 8 fielding positions? The above “depth chart” is just my own observations, and isn’t necessarily the way the…
With nine interleague wins and a weekend of clear skies in the forecast, it looked like the Tigers would have a couple of good things going for them as they headed back to league play: 1) A winning record against the stronger Pacific League; and 2) With no rain dates to make up, four straight…
← Click here for a team profile The last three seasons of cat fights, the Lions have remained kings of the jungle. As the Tigers try to claw their way back into the hunt for first, beating the team out of Saitama at home would be key, especially with the best team coming last on…
Hanshin has a relatively mediocre record against every Pacific League team these past dozen years of interleague existence. The team against which Hanshin has its second best record are these Chiba Lotte Marines. However, last season they are the lone team that swept us three straight. However, these Marines are not the same team they…