9/29/12 – Chunichi (Home)

September 29th, 2012

Chunichi Dragons 4

Tokyo Swallows 0

Streak: Lost 1 Last 5: WWLWL

(Meiji Jingu Stadium)

The Swallows are going to the Climax Series!!! (Because the Carp lost to the Tigers 2-0.) What the Swallows weren’t able to do was strike fear in the hearts of their first round opponents by beating them in their last meeting of the regular season.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Dragons	0	3	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	9	0
Swallows	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	9	0
W: Kawakami (3-1); L: Roman (9-11) ; S: Iwase (32)

	Dragons		Swallows
1	Yohei Oshima (CF)	1	Yuhei (Takai) (RF)
2	Masahiro Araki (2B)	2	Hiroyasu Tanaka (2B)
3	Hirokazu Ibata (SS)	3	Wladimir Balentien (RF)
4	Tony Blanco (1B)	4	Kazuhiro Hatakeyama (1B)
5	Kazuhiro Wada (LF)	5	Shingo Kawabata (SS)
6	Masahiko Morino (3B)	6	Shinya Miyamoto (3B)
7	Takahiro Donoue (RF)	7	Kazuki Fukuchi (LF)
8	Motonobu Tanishige (C)	8	YUhei Nakamura (C)
9	Kenshin Kawakami (P)	9	Orlando Roman (P)

Orlando Roman had one really bad inning in the second as he gave up a double, walk , and single to Blanco, Wada, and Morino to start the second. Donoue got the first run for the Dragons on a sac fly, and Tanishige batted in the second run with a single. 2-0 Dragons Roman did manage to strikeout Kawakami, but gave up a double to Oshima to score yet another run. 3-0 Dragons

The Dragons got another run after Roman gave up a two-out walk, and back-to-back singles in the third. 4-0 Dragons

The Swallows did manage to get 9 total hits off Dragons’ pitchers, but the fact that none of them were of the extra-base variety meant that the Swallows weren’t able dig themselves out of their early hole.

With neither offense being super potent and prone to streaks, this game served as a preview for what to expect in the CS. With all games to be played in the pitcher-friendly Nagoya Dome, expect the team to score first to win the games. The Swallows ended their regular season matchup with the Dragons with a 13-8-3 record, with a 6-3-1 record at the Nagoya Dome.

The Swallows are scheduled to play their last regular season game against the Giants tomorrow. However, with a typhoon scheduled to hit Tokyo tomorrow afternoon/evening the game will likely be cancelled. With the Swallows’ playoff fate now decided, it will be interesting to see how the Swallows approach their last 7 games.