An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
There were rumblings back on December 27th in the Japanese press, just after the team went public with their successful acquisition of outfielder Lastings Milledge, that Tokyo was in the market for a starting pitcher import. Patrick Newman over at NPB Tracker, thanks in part to a helpful tweet, has once again tipped us off [...]
October 30th, 2011 Yomiuri Giants 6 Tokyo Swallows 2 Series: Tied 1-1 (Meiji Jingu Stadium) The Swallows were never really in control of this contest. That was evident throughout. Making it worse was the fact that the team never had a shot once we got deep into our bullpen. Uninspiring. Unhelpful. Unhappy. Unbe-Lim-able. Utsumi was [...]
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 2nd, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 4 Yokohama BayStars 3 Streak: Won 1 Last 5: WWLLW (Yokohama Stadium) After watching its young pitchers get knocked about the park for the past two days, Tokyo looked to salvage a bit of pride against the recently very feisty BayStars. Tokyo opened the scoring on a solo Hatakeyama [...]
September 29th, 2011 Hanshin Tigers 4 Tokyo Swallows 7 Streak: Won 4 Last 5: LWWWW (Meiji Jingu Stadium) Not quite as exciting as the MLB American League wildcard race, but the last few days at Jingu have been mightily enjoyable. Just like the two nights before, the Swallows came from behind to comfortably beat the [...]
September 28th, 2011 Hanshin Tigers 5 Tokyo Swallows 8 Streak: Won 3 Last 5: LLWWW (Meiji Jingu Stadium) The Swallows sent Shichijo to the mound after a 1 month stint in Toda, while the Tigers elected to send young Takumi Akiyama to the mound for his first start of the season. Akiyama had two strong [...]
September 24th, 2011 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 2 Chunichi Dragons 3 Streak: Lost 4 Last 5: TLLLL (Nagoya Dome) Another day, another heart-breakingly close loss to the Dragons in Nagoya. The Swallows got their points early as Kawabata managed a two out single off Soto, which Hatake followed with his 21st home run of the season. [...]
September 17th, 2011 Yokohama BayStars 2 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 2 Streak: Tied 1 Last 5: WWWWT (Jingu Stadium) Well, it had to end sometime. After nine wins, Tokyo’s winning streak ended at the hands of Yokohama, of course, in a game with a lot of thwarted offense. The scoring: Kinjoh hit a solo home run [...]
September 13th, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 4 Hiroshima Carp 1 Streak: Won 7 Last 5: WWWWW (Mazda Zoooooom Zooooooom Stadium) After dispatching the hoodoo that Hanshin had held over them in 2011 with that ultra-satisfying sweep this last weekend, the first series of this new week presented another opportunity to turn the tables on a [...]
September 7th, 2011 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 4 Yokohama BayStars 0 Streak: Won 2 Last 5: WWLWW (Yokohama Stadium) If there’s one thing that’s been backwards over the past few years, it has been the difficulty Tokyo has had with Japan’s most-unfortunately nicknamed, and most unfortunate, club, the BayStars. Thankfully, that has changed. Akagawa notched his [...]
