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 had a 12-28-1 record heading into this game. That, by the way, includes a 4-11-1 mark at Koshien Stadium. (As noted by some on Twitter, they have fewer wins at their ballpark since the start of August than Osaka Toin and Kanaashi Nogyo – two high school teams from the fabled high school tournament.
In any case, this final game started with both sides exchanging bagels for a few innings, before starter Minoru Iwata gave up a run in the fourth. It was not a Neftali Soto home run (though he has more home runs at Koshien since the start of September than all Hanshin players combined)… but he did score the run.
Two innings later, the power drought for the Tigers ended (after 14 straight games without a proper round-tripper). Hit into some pretty empty stands by Masahiro Nakatani:
代打中谷、同点ホームラン！ #hanshin #虎テレ pic.twitter.com/JH3MaJxQWp
— 阪神タイガース (@TigersDreamlink) October 10, 2018
One inning later, Naomasa Yohkawa hit a double over the center fielder’s head to bring home Yusuke Ohyama for the game-winning run. That’s RIGHT! Another WIN at KOSHIEN!
The team’s final record at their home park this year: 21-39-2. Barely one third of their games ended in victory at Koshien this year. So this is what manager Tomoaki Kanemoto had to say in his final speech to the faithful Tigers fans at Koshien.
甲子園今季最終戦終了後の監督挨拶#tigerscast#hanshin pic.twitter.com/u1ThxM07Gb
— TigersCastタイガースキャスト (@tigers_cast) October 10, 2018
Basically, it was a rough season but the players worked hard right from spring. My inability as a manager caused this poor record. But I can tell you for sure that the players will bounce back from this and do much better in 2019.
You better hope so, Mr. Kantoku. You’re lucky ownership is keeping you around for another campaign.
Final Score: Hanshin 2, Yokohama 1
WP: Atsushi Nohmi (4-3); SV: Rafael Dolis (31)