How can a team forget a humiliating (and frustrating) sweep at the hand of the league leaders over the weekend? Beat up on an opponent that has been kind to them so far this year! That’s right, the Tigers found a lot of strange ways to lose to the Carp in Hiroshima to open the…
The good news is that the Tigers have finished playing in Pacific League parks for another year. The bad news is that they had their worst week of the season and looked terrible in doing so. This series was no different. Other than being able to squeeze out a victory in the middle game. Read…
Unable to get on a good roll and heading to a park that seldom helped them last year, the Tigers needed good pitching from their starters – something that has been their downfall most of the past week. Could the team use Thursday’s rainout to straighten out some of their problems? The tale of the tape…
Fukudome, Egoshi hit HRs, Tigers Romp 10-1 Last season, the Tigers won just 2 games at Tokyo Dome in 13 tries. They needed just 3 games to match the total under new manager Tomoaki Kanemoto. Game 12 – Thursday, 4/7: Despite the clean-up hitters striking out consecutively to Giants rookie pitcher Kentaro Taira, they were…
The Hanshin Tigers looked to continue their dominance against Chunichi under the dome in Osaka as the 2016 season raised its veil. Could they extend the 11-game win streak at Kyocera against the rebuilding Dragons? Game 1, Friday 3/25: As reported earlier this weekend (click here for recap), the series started on a rough note…
Randy Messenger looked invincible in the first inning. After that, the Chunichi bats and eyes made sure the bases were always occupied. After a strikeout-ground out-strikeout first inning, rookie Shun Takayama recorded his first career hit on a two-strike grounder to left field. Only Shintaro Yokota‘s quickness prevented his groundout to pitcher from becoming a double…
The first squad (ichi gun = 一軍) was announced the other day, and there are 27 players on it. There is a marked shortage of pitchers, because the team will call up its anticipated starters for the March 29-31 series @ Yakult at a later date. That means three of the players (presumably hitters) will be…
It was great to see many of the players up closely during the first week of spring training down in Okinawa last week. After terrible bouts with illness, I am finally ready to start processing what I saw and share it with you all. Part 1 was about the fielders (catchers excluded), this one will…
So you thought the Hanshin Tigers’ baseball season was over? Think again. For some players, the break was short or even non-existent. Many have been practicing at Koshien the past week or so, and starting November 1, the team will have its annual Fall Camp in Aki City (Kochi Prefecture). This will be their first…