An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
Kozo Ota is a third-generation Swallows fan that grew up on Montreal Expos baseball. When he's not at Jingu, he works as a freelance translator/interpreter to make enough money to go to Jingu.
November 5th, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 1 Chunichi Dragons 5 Series: Chunichi 3-2 Tokyo (Nagoya Dome) The Swallows’ thin starting “rotation” was finally exposed tonight as Akagawa was forced to start on 4 days rest. The Dragons countered with lefty Yudai Kawai. The Swallows elected to continue starting rookie Yamada at shortstop batting leadoff. The rookie [...]
November 3nd, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 3 Chunichi Dragons 1 Series: Chunichi 2-1 Tokyo (Nagoya Dome) With the team already down 2-0 in the series, it goes without saying that tonight’s game was a must win for the Swallows. Amidst much speculation, the Swallows started Ishikawa on 3 days rest against the Dragons’ Chen. But that [...]
October 31th, 2011 Yomiuri Giants 1 Tokyo Swallows 3 Series: Swallows Win 2-1 (Meiji Jingu Stadium) Based on the comments received in yesterday’s game report, you don’t need to read this report to find out that the Swallows won game 3 of their series against the hated Giants. The raw details of what happened and [...]
The Swallows drafted 8 players in the draft tonight. Those of you who read my draft preview last night will find none of the names I discussed in our list of picks. The night started off with the Swallows vying for Shuhei Takahashi along with the Dragons (as expected) and the Buffaloes. After each team’s [...]
The 2011 NPB Draft will happen tomorrow evening at the Grand Prince Hotel starting from 17:00. For those of you who are new to the Japanese draft format and are not familiar with how it works, check out the post I wrote last year about the process. I’ll be presenting a few players that may [...]
Welcome to the Monday Review, in which we’ll look back at the week that was and look ahead to the week that will be. We hope a recurring weekly review column will help readers identify some trends that can’t be covered in a single game report. We’re still trying to work out the format, so [...]
October 13th, 2011 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 0 Chunichi Dragons 2 Streak: Lost 4 Last 5: WLLLL (Nagoya Dome) It’s over folks. The Swallows lost 4 straight to the Dragons to fall 4.5 games behind the Dragons and saw the Dragons’ magic number shrink to 2. This game saw the Swallows’ send their only hot [...]
October 6th, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 1 Hanshin Tigers 7 Streak: Lost 3 Last 5: LWLLL (Kyocera Dome) Let’s not beat around the bush the Swallows lost, and the Dragons won their fifth straight game tonight. Which meant that the Swallows have relinquished their CL lead for the first time since May 30th, the last [...]
Welcome to the Monday Review, in which we’ll look back at the week that was and look ahead to the week that will be. We hope a recurring weekly review column will help readers identify some trends that can’t be covered in a single game report. We’re still trying to work out the format, so [...]
October 1st, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 3 Yokohama BayStars 10 Streak: Lost 2 Last 5: WWWLL (Yokohama Stadium) Things were not pretty as the Swallows’ young bullpen arms were exposed to the BayStars’ bats. Akagawa seemed to have a handle of things in the early going. Even the solo homerun he gave up to Tsutsugo [...]
