Leadoff hitter Takumu Nakano started the game with a triple and our team took its first lead of the series! Then Shintaro Fujinami started the pitching half of the game with three strikeouts. Then… they hit home runs while we hit a bunch of singles and a couple of sacrifice flies. The gap between these…
Those 26 shutout losses during the regular season were no fluke. Today, the Hanshin Tigers managed just two hits, did not earn a single free pass, and struck out 14 times (against a pitcher-generous umpire, mind you). The first of those hits was a single by Koji Chikamoto that saw him thrown out trying to…
People can look at all the regular season stats they want and try to make predictions about the postseason. The Baystars were 11-2 against the Tigers at Yokohama Stadium this year. (BUT… that includes 10-0 in night games and 1-2 in day games!) Koji Chikamoto was 1-12 against ace Shota Imanaga in 2022. (BUT… he…
Pretty much every game in the past two weeks has been “must win” for the Tigers, but it is only recently that they have started taking those words literally. Tonight was no different. It took until the eighth inning for the team to put together a good chance, and our clutchest bat of late –…
After downing the Swallows 8-0 on Friday night, then sitting around for two days (plus the day off Monday) because of a Covid explosion in the Yakult camp, the Tigers were raring to go on Tuesday. Donning arguably the ugliest uniforms they have worn in ages, they laid a (goose) egg, completely unable to push…
Everyone who has followed the Tigers for the past 10 (or fewer) years knows that Yokohama Stadium is the team’s favorite ballpark to play at, even more than Koshien. Their record there is outstanding, year in and year out. This season appears to be different, though, and this series in particular showed us that wins…
The Hiroshima series in the first half of the week left a sour taste in our mouths. We were coming home tired (LONG games) and defeated (0-2-1), and their aces (Ohno and Yanagi) were slated to face us. Somehow, though, we figured them both out enough to score some runs. While we did not hang…
OK, there was so much more to the series than just keeping young phenom Roki Sasaki out of the win column. The ace did, after all, shut out our team for six innings. The good news is that he “only” struck out 7 and we did get guys into scoring position against him. Also, Aaron…
No one said playing the 1st place team in the Pacific League, the Rakuten Eagles, would be easy. But with them entering this series on a 2-9 stretch, it should not have been this hard to put runs on the board. Yes, they have great starting pitching and their bullpen is pretty good. However, our…
It has been quite the rough go of things this season. Perhaps the truest telling of the state the team was in came during their series in Yokohama in April, in which they got swept. We NEVER get swept by the Baystars on the road. Their ballpark is our place to party, to hit like…