After yesterday’s embarrassing loss, the Tigers came out roaring on both ends. Joe Gunkel mowed down the first three batters he faced really quickly, and Koji Chikamoto smacked the first pitch in the bottom half of the inning over the wall. From there, the batters kept the foot on the pedal most of the night,…
Masashi Itoh continued his dominant form against the Baystars, going 8 strong innings and making just a few mistakes with pitch locations. Meanwhile, Mel Rojas Jr led off the scoring with a line-drive, solo home run into the front row of the right-field bleachers. Later in the game, he put the Tigers ahead for good…
With the Giants winning earlier in the day, the Tigers needed a W to stay at the top of the standings. Starter Akira Niho did not get things off to a very good start with a couple of walks and an RBI hit… but he settled in, and the bats took over from the second…
The Tigers have been bad at home of late. I mean, really bad. The last time they won a three-game series at Koshien was May 11-13 against the Dragons, and that was due in part to a rainout. They got swept by the Baystars three weeks ago at home, and wanted so badly to end…
What did Hanshin do as a follow-up act to yesterday’s dramatic, come-from-behind, escape from the jaws of death landmark of a game? They sure didn’t build on the momentum, as the Baystars scored three early runs against Raul Alcantara and tacked on another in the third inning before he was chased. Meanwhile, the batters looked…
What to say. This was a true pitching gem by starter Yuki Nishi. He dissected the powerful Giants order all night, and made just one mistake on an 0-2 count… his pitch missed Umeno’s glove by maybe 6″ and was in the bottom of the strike zone, enough for Takumi Ohshiro to push it through…
Unfortunately, it neither rained nor poured at Koshien Stadium on this day. It would have helped if the game had been called before the fifth inning because at no point during these nine innings did it look like our guys were going to pull off the win. Masashi Itoh walked three and plunked one in…
Everything is lined up for this to be a lucky game for the Tigers: it is Tanabata Festival Day (make a wish day) in Japan, it is 7/7, and game 77. You’d think that would be enough for us to get some cool mojo going, like a ninth-inning three-run home run to give us 7…
We were watching our child learning to ride a bicycle today. Fall off, scrape a knee, pick him back up, dust him off, encourage him to keep trying – he’ll get it right next time. Repeat the process enough, and the kid will eventually figure it out, right? Well, today, the opportunities could have been…
This was a tight game, with the lone run in the game’s first six innings coming on a broken-up double play. But then in the seventh, Jefry Marte homered off Robert Corniel, and in the eighth, both he and Jerry Sands got RBI hits off Kyle Bird. On our end of things, Masashi Itoh pitched…