After the rather embarrassing opening series in Tokyo against these same Giants (25 straight innings without a run), the Tigers’ pride was on the line for this, the first home set of 2024 against their longtime rivals. They continued to struggle with run production, but the pitching trio of Shoki Murakami, Masashi Itoh, and Yuki…
The title defense began on March 29 at Tokyo Dome. You would think the defending champs, and the only CL team to finish in the top 3 for 5 straight years, would get to start their season at home! However, the Tigers traded that privilege for the right to host the Yomiuri Giants at Koshien…
The reigning NPB champions started their title defense on Friday night at Tokyo Dome. Koyo Aoyagi took the mound for the Tigers as they faced the Yomiuri Giants led by ace Shosei Togo. The first four innings were clean for both teams, though each had a chance to break the scoreless tie. In the top…
Hosts T-Ray and Sanjay go over the latest team news, recap the preseason games from the first half of the month, and then listen to five guest contributors who share their thoughts on one of the other Central League teams. Follow Scott (https://chunichisoul.blogspot.com/), Heather (@ysbaseball2896), Yakyu Cosmopolitan (@YakyuCosmo), Brian (@RiouxBM), and Lucas (@lucasborjaNPB) on X…
The Tigers are historically a bad team against the Giants. Through the end of the 2020 season, it was an 827-1086-71 (.432) mark. Fortunately, the Tigers have started chipping away at that deficit in the last three years. Two years ago, it was 13-9-3 in our favor. Last year, once again there was a four-game…
As some of you have heard, I was fortunate enough to have tickets to Thursday’s game at Koshien Stadium. Truth be told, we did not plan it ahead of time to be this way, it just worked out for us. Me and Sanjay (podcast co-host) wanted to take in a game together, and since he…
History was made at Hanshin Koshien Stadium last night, September 14. The Tigers had a magic number of 1, and were riding a 10-game winning streak. Their perfect September was on the line, and an 11-game streak had not been achieved in 41 seasons. Nevertheless, the team put aside some early-inning jitters (see recap below)…
For the first time in club history, the Hanshin Tigers have put together two 10-game winning streaks in a single season. The team is still undefeated in September, and now needs a win (OR a Hiroshima loss) to clinch the Central League pennant tomorrow night at Koshien Stadium against the Giants. There will be no…
It has been far from an ideal season for Yuki Nishi. Once the staff ace, he is now the “old man” (despite being two months shy of 33, only one player on the team is longer in the tooth, and only by 6 months). He got farmed for the first time as a Tiger (in…
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…