It’s never easy going up against the defending champs. And the Hiroshima Carp have been having their way with opponents of late, having won six straight series, and blowing out three different teams by double digits in the past two weeks. (This includes one against our Tigers at Koshien.) A sweep for us could give…
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…
After a humiliating series sweep at the hands of these young upstart Dragons, Hanshin needed to get their revenge by winning their final two games before heading in to the all-star break. And although Nagoya’s boys came to Kansai on a two-game losing streak, they saved two left-handed import pitchers (against whom Hanshin has had…
The hard-charging Yokohama DeNA BayStars could leapfrog Hanshin with a series sweep in the two teams’ last showdown before the All-Star Break. But Hanshin was also showing signs of breaking out of their worst slump of the year, having won two straight to end the series against the Swallows. Which team would prevail? Game 73…
Hanshin has recently announced the signing of first baseman Jason Rogers. Apparently he is quite excited to be joining the team, as he answered a random fan’s direct messages on Twitter about his arrival date (before the deal was officially announced), and simply tweeted the words “Hanshin Tigers!!” a day later. (The tweet has since…
This isn’t funny anymore. The implosion against a powerful Rakuten Eagles team, I get. Same with the shutout the next day. Then losing two straight to Hiroshima is hard to stomach but also a plausible scenario, one we could stomach, to an extent. But the ONE RUN series against the Dragons? Sure, it was on…