An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
May 8th, 2012 Tokyo Swallows 0 Chunichi Dragons 1 Streak: Lost 2 Last 5: LWWLL (Toyohashi Stadium) Chunichi leapfrogged Tokyo back up to the top of the CL as they edged an ultra-tight affair in Aichi. Dragons’ starter Yamai was attempting his third start of the season against the Swallows, after racking up two losses and an [...]
March 30th, 2012 Tokyo Swallows Yomiuri Giants Streak: Won 1 Last 5: W—- (MLB STADIUM JAPAN; aka TOKYO DOME) Opening Night in Japan…and two outs away from a no-hitter After two of the AL West teams opened their season in Japan, Tokyo was anxious to see their two teams open the season. Loyal supporters of [...]
Is it just me, or was that not a phenomenally long off-season? I guess technically it was shorter than normal, but whatever. We’ve spent the last couple of days dreaming and prognosticating, and now we finally get to see what the team can do! Today is opening day, and the Swallows will kick off their [...]
Thanks to Gen at Yakyu Baka for tipping us off about season predictions made by the so-called experts assembled by Sponichi. Some of them clearly haven’t been paying close attention to what went on behind the scenes with all six of the Central League teams since the Japan Series ended last November. All 14 pundits had [...]
I put up a Wishful Thinking post yesterday, so please leave a comment at the bottom of that post, but here’s a little something for those that are more the multiple-choice type. Much like our opinion poll from back in January, here’s another one to gauge how the Tokyo faithful are feeling as the 2012 [...]
As I mentioned a while back, we were eventually going to get around to thinking wishfully. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t plan to leave it until just two days before the curtain opens on the 2012 regular season. Historically, this post has always seen the light of day at some point in March. My [...]
We’re back with fresh intro/outro bookend music (care of Dave’s handiwork) and our prognostications about the 2012 NPB season! With less than two weeks to go until opening day (Friday March 30th, 6PM, Tokyo Dome), we run through where we think the 12 NPB teams will finish the season with extra-special emphasis placed on your [...]
Although arguably not as noteworthy as the first installment in this series, 24-year-old LHP, Kyohei Muranaka, is high on our list of players we’d like to see do well in 2012. And he’s got a small personal milestone within his grasp that we’d be very happy to see him reach–500 career strikeouts. After an injury-shortened 2011, [...]
Tokyo is slated to kick off the 2012 season on March 30th against Yomiuri, and with spring camp starting in a little more than three weeks, it’s about time we started making wild predictions and thinking wishfully about how close Tokyo will come to winning the pennant. Wishful thinking can wait just a bit, but [...]
Nippon Pro Baseball posted the schedule for next spring’s exhibition games. The first game of the exhibition schedule is on February 18th, a full week ahead of when Tokyo starts mixing games against other pro teams in with its routine of (mostly) intra-squad scrimmages. There are 108 preseason games to be played by the 12 [...]
