And so it begins. October was a good month for the Tigers, despite not taking home the pennant. On the other hand, the Giants had a historically bad month, finishing below .500 but secured the third spot. In the playoffs, none of that matters, other than the Tigers being able to host the entire best-of-three…
The Tigers cannot afford to lose or tie, anymore. Heading into this, their second-last game of the season, they needed a big win and big production from a lineup that was once again absent of Koji Chikamoto and Yusuke Ohyama. Who stepped up? Teruaki Sato did. His first at-bat sent a message to Carp, Dragons,…
There is something about watching Haruto Takahashi pitching that puts fans’ minds at ease. He did not disappoint on this night, either. Everyone expected he would get a shot at another Maddux (complete game shutout with fewer than 100 pitches) but for some reason, he was pulled through 8 innings with just 90 pitches on…
The night belonged to the Hiroshima Carp and their solo home run hitting batters. They got four, including a pair out of Seiya Suzuki (oh please won’t you just go to the majors already?). While Mel Rojas Jr hit a big fly in the bottom of the seventh to bring the Tigers to within one,…
Yuki Nishi is definitely not having his best season by any means. He managed to get through six innings without surrendering a run, though, and the trio of Raul Alcantara, Suguru Iwazaki and Robert Suarez kept the bagels coming. Meanwhile, Mel Rojas Jr hit a towering home run in the top of the fourth, and…
Coming from behind to win games feels good, but falling behind early game in and game out, well, does not feel so good. Once again, the Tigers’ starter – in this case, Masashi Itoh – surrendered three runs in the game’s first three innings… and our bats only really came to life in the fifth…
Honestly, after five innings, this one looked over. Just like the other games in this series. But the Tigers bats once again woke up late and put a scare into the Giants’ bullpen and bench. Takumi Akiyama only lasted two innings after surrendering yet another first-inning home run, and Shintaro Fujinami served one up to…
Rookie Shoki Murakami put up some solid numbers on the farm for a good three-month stretch since his top-squad debut at the end of May. Unfortunately, it did not translate into an improvement on his numbers on this night. He allowed runs to score in all three of his innings of work, so despite recording…
Yuki Nishi continued to look for elusive career win #100, and while he started out reasonably well, and technically did produce a quality start (6 IP 3 R), the bullpen doubled the runs against in two innings of work, and captain Yusuke Ohyama failed to capitalize on three big chances with runners in scoring position:…
Shintaro Fujinami has been trying for much of this season to prove that he is worthy of a spot in the rotation. He did little to win over the coaching staff on this night, giving up two runs in the first, loading the bases in the second, and giving the lead right back to the…