An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
March 31st, 2010 Chunichi Dragons 5 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 9 Streak: Won 4 Last 5: LWWWW (Meiji Jingu Stadium) Well, starts to the season don’t come too much better than this. A start which on paper looked ominous to say the least – an away series against the CL champions Yomiuri followed by the [...]
March 30th, 2010 Chunichi Dragons 2 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 5 Streak: Won 3 Last 5: LWWW (Meiji Jingu Stadium) Fresh after winning a series in the Tokyo Dome for the first time since 2004 on opening weekend, there were plenty more reasons for optimism after Tokyo downed Chunichi in tonight’s home opener. Primary amongst [...]
Now, if you’re reading this expecting some kind of new high-brow niche in adult entertainment from Japan, please accept my apologies and look elsewhere. This here be about baseball. Just as it did last year, the new Swallows Official Goods Catalogue popped through my letterbox this last week, goading me to waste yet more money [...]
March 28th, 2010 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 5 Yomiuri Giants 2 Streak: Won 2 Last 5: LWW (Tokyo Dome) Do you smell that? It’s the smell of optimism. The night after Yoshinori pitched a superb 8 innings to land Tokyo their first win of the year 2010, Muranaka put in arguably an even better performance to give [...]
March 27th, 2010 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 10 Yomiuri Giants 5 Streak: Won 1 Last 5: LW (Tokyo Dome) Tokyo’s bats finally exploded into life and Yoshinori pitched a gem as the Swallows ran out easy winners in the home of their beloved neighbours. Yoshinori pitched 8 superb innings, tossing a career high 135 pitches, [...]
March 26th, 2010 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 1 Yomiuri Giants 4 Streak: Lost 1 Last 5: L (Tokyo Dome) In recent times the Swallows rarely (make that almost never) win at Tokyo Dome. Under Takada more-so than ever. For the Swallows, a trip to the stain dome offers nothing but a sense of foreboding, stained underwear and ultimate disappointment at the inevitable +1 in the [...]
Now that preseason play has begun, you’re probably either spending your afternoons at Jingu or you’re wondering how the squad is shaping up. Newcomer Takahiro Araki, 23, has been the regular at short and looks pretty good in the field, although he seems to be swinging for the fences a bit much; Eulogio de la [...]
Semi-official injury count for the month of February at the Tokyo Swallows spring camp: 11 players missed all or part of at least one day of practice. In detail, that works out to six pitchers, four catchers, and one infielder. Go, go Swallows! While the six injured pitchers may set off the loudest alarm for [...]
