9/5/08 – Yomiuri (Home)
September 5th, 2008
Yomiuri Giants 8
Tokyo Yakult Swallows 0
Streak: Lost 1 Last 5: WWWWL
(Meiji Jingu Stadium)
This was not a fun one to watch. It was a pretty simple (lopsided) contest that can be boiled down to two simple lexical chunks:
Greisinger pitched one hell of a game.
Kawashima didn’t have one of his best nights.
And Kawashima was left in there long enough to give up eight runs, all of them earned. I’m not sure who Takada was trying to send a message to–Kawashima, the entire pitching staff, us in the stands, or all of the above–but it was clear that Kawashima was being left in to clean up after himself. It ended up taking the poor guy 135 pitches to get through six innings in which he surrendered eight runs off of 10 hits (6 K’s; 4 walks). Kawashima is now 6-6 with a post-binge ERA of 4.35 (those last four runs in the six really hurt).
Meanwhile, Greisinger, as he is prone to do, pitched well enough to get himself out of a couple of bases loaded jams and left the game after eight innings of five-hit baseball.
Kawashima Keizo (shortstop) went two for three for Tokyo, but that’s about all to write home about.
Game two of the series is tomorrow at 6:20 PM.
How did Swallows let him get away? Tigers find him difficult (in fact Tigers find any pitcher difficult at the moment) but to have him pitching for the Giants is a nightmare.
Probably a combination of new management coming in and a front office that’s never really been willing to pay anyone what they’re worth.
Greisinger was clutch, there’s no doubt about it. He made, and makes, batters look absolutely foolish when he’s on (which, after a slow start, will probably be for the remainder of the season).
Rami, too. How do we give up the guy who bested the CL MVP in almost every statistical category last season?
Losing both Greisinger and Ramirez at the same time was completely…well…we’d rather not talk about it to be honest with you.
And to have them both scooped up by…
The direct answer to your question is that there’s no rational answer to your question (if that makes any sense).