August 24th, 2012
Tokyo Swallows 0
Chunichi Dragons 2
Streak: Lost 3 Last 5: LDLLL
(Nagoya Dome)
After struggling in a 3-game set against the first place newspaper boys of Tokyo, the Birds headed south to face the Kansai Chubu paper boys in Nagoya.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | o | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| Chunichi | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 2 | 8 | 0 |
| W: Tanaka (5-8) L: Akagawa (6-6) S: Iwase (30) | ||||||||||||
Akagawa pitched seven solid innings but was unable to get any support on the offensive side. The birds hitters only mustered three hits throughout the night, while the (the ugliest looking excuse of a mascot this writer has seen) Dragons knocked 8 hits around the field.
Tokyo | Chunichi |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Milledge LF | 1 | Oshima CF |
| 2 | Ueda CF | 2 | Araki 2B |
| 3 | Kawabata 3B | 3 | Wada LF |
| 4 | Hatakeyama 1B | 4 | Morino 3B |
| 5 | Takeuchi RF | 5 | Ibata SS |
| 6 | Tanaka 2B | 6 | Yamasaki 1B |
| 7 | Morioka SS | 7 | Tanishige C |
| 8 | Nakamura C | 8 | Hirata RF |
| 9 | Akagawa P | 9 | Tanaka P |
I have to say the highlight of this game was seeing both teams wearing throw-back uniforms.
Akagawa wonders why his offensive support disappeared.
The Kansai Chubu newspaper smurfs would score the first of two runs in the bottom half of the first. Oshima started the inning off with a double. He would move to third on a bunt from Araki. Wada would then walk to put runners on 1st and 3rd. Morino would hit a grounder towards second and would be thrown out at first. Oshima would score on the play as Wada advanced to second.1 – 0 Chunichi
Ibata would walk before Yamasaki would fly out to end the inning.
The Birds threatened in the top half of the second but stranded two runners. That would be the last time a Swallowers batter made it past second.
Both pitchers performed fairly well over the next few innings. Akagawa would make another mistake in the bottom of the 5th. Hirata was the first batter he faced. Hirata hit the 3rd pitch he saw into the left-center bleachers to give the Kansai Chubu newspaper smurfs a 2 run lead. 2 – 0 Chunichi
The Birds went down in order the next two innings before they finally got a runner on first in the 8th via a walk. The ensuing batters, though, went down in order. The same thing happened in the ninth.
That said, after the fifth inning, the Kansai Chubu newspaper smurfs didn’t do much of anything either. The only thing left to report was that Iwase pitched the ninth for his 30th save of the season.
Number 30 for me.
Notes
- 3 frickin hits was all we could muster
- We need some offense bats asap, and it looks like Coco will be back in uniform sometime next week.
- 27,627 folks were witness to this “game”
- Tanaka Kenichi and Hirata Ryousuke were the heros of this game.
- Both teams will go at it again tomorrow at 2pm
- Tateyama is the scheduled starter for Tokyo. He will be facing Iwata.
About Scott
