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5/21/10 – Chiba (Away)

May 21, 2010 By 2 Comments

May 21nd, 2010

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3

Chiba Lotte Marines 6

Streak: Lost 7   Last 5: LLLLL

(Chiba Marine Stadium)

Make that 7 losses in a row then. And 30 losses overall.  We’re breaking new ground.

  1. Tanaka (2B)
  2. Miyamoto (SS)
  3. Aoki (CF)
  4. D’Antona (DH)
  5. Ihara (RF)
  6. Noguchi (1B)
  7. Yoshimoto (3B)
  8. Aikawa (C)
  9. Fukuchi (LF)

This one was pretty much over in the bottom of the 1st with Barnette making his 8th appearance of the year on the mound. Three walks and a double would have normally equalled at least a run, but some poor base running left the bases loaded with two outs for Saburo, as Barnette had a chance to escape the inning with the scores tied at zero. And escape he should have, as the preening Chiba favourite hit a routine flyball to centre after working the count full. Only a combination of the gusty winds (Chiba Marine Stadium stands on the edge of Tokyo Bay) and the floodlights meant the ball landed a good couple of metres to the left of the spot where a clueless Aoki was glued, allowing three runs to score for 3-0 Chiba. And it got worse as a double, another walk and a single made it 5-0 Chiba.

And that horrible series of events was pretty much that. Three singles and a run scoring dead-ball made it 6-0 in the 4th, before Tokyo added their consolation runs via a 6th inning Miyamoto two-run homer and an 8th inning solo shot from Aoki making it 6-3 Final.

Tony Barnette took his 4th loss of the year to go with his 2 wins and his 5.61 ERA.

The Swallows were outhit 11-7 and only managed more than one hit per inning in the 6th.

This is the first time the birds have lost seven on the bounce this year. Last Wednesday’s loss at Seibu broke the record for the worst start in Interleague play since it’s inception in 2005 (the prior record was held by the ’08 0-5 Baystars). Tokyo now must have their sights set on the alltime Interleague loss streak record of 11, set by the ’05 Fighters. I have little doubt they can achieve it given the way things seem to be unfolding this season.

Oh, and it seems Takada will be with us for some time longer after the club president said he would like to see him see out the last year of his three year contract.

Joy.

Filed Under: 2010 Season Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
About David Watkins

David is a baseball bothering Brummie who spends a fair portion of his life fretting over both the Tokyo Swallows and the WORLD'S GREATEST FOOTBALL TEAM, Aston Villa.

  • http://tokyoswallows.com/ Garrett DeOrio

    After the game, Takada griped about Aoki's mistakes to the cameras, saying Aoki brought the whole team down. Not that he was necessarily incorrect, just that it's exceedingly bad form to bag your own players as an excuse for why your team lost, especially when you so rarely make a point of praising your guys when they do well and almost never acknowledge the all-too-frequent fact that your own blunders repeatedly harm your team's chances to a greater degree than any individual player's off day could.

    Part of being a leader or a boss is giving credit where it's due and, more important, taking responsibility for decisions made by you or for what happens on your watch. I guess it should be little surprise that a guy who lacks the sense and decency to admit that he has no idea what he's doing would also seek to dump the shit on his subordinates, as if Aoki dropping a couple of fly balls explained the Swallows' implementation of a play-to-lose strategy or Takada's nonsensical line-up fiddling and consistent failure to find roles for his players and give them the space to settle in and develop expertise.

    With every passing day, it seems Takada finds new ways to show that he's not only a loser in terms of being an incompetent dope, but is also a loser in terms of simply having no class.

    As I said before, though, if he had any class or decency, he'd have resigned by now.

  • Bryan

    It is fair to say that Takada is my most hated person in all of Asia. No need to go into details as to why