June 18th, 2008 SoftBank Hawks 2 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3 Streak: Won 2 Last 5: WWLWW (“Home” game for Tokyo at Nagano Olympic Stadium) A solid evening’s work from Masanori Ishikawa and a 2 run homer from Norichika Aoki was enough to edge the Swallows past Softbank in Nagano this evening.

Sacrifice bunting is rarely a good idea. With a man on first and the pitcher (or Shiroishi) at the plate, it could be argued that giving up an out in favor of advancing the runner is understandable. However, in most other cases it seems like a stupid waste of an out (or maybe it’s a [...]