Will Roman be joining the Swallows starting rotation?

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 that the Tokyo front office may have gotten a player to sign on the dotted line.

RHP Orlando Roman, a veteran of the minor leagues in North America, Mexico and the pro league in Taiwan, could be appearing in a Tokyo Swallows uniform in 2012. He spent four seasons at AAA (two of which were in Mexico), mostly as a reliever, and amassed 50 saves and a 2.57 ERA.

The 6’2″ hard-throwing pitcher has spent the last two seasons pitching for the Brother Elephants in Taiwan and was the strikeout leader in 2010.

He was used primarily as a starter in Taiwan and showed that he can log a lot  of innings. He had 161 strikeouts in 203.2 innings this past season, and his ERA for 2010-11 is 3.20. He also pitched for Puerto Rico in the 2006 WBC.

So it’s possible that Tokyo just picked up a 33-year-old pitcher who can start or come out of the bullpen. However, we are still waiting for more confirmation from the Japanese press.

If it turns out that he’ll be joining the Swallows in 2012, then the team now has five non-Japanese players that are vying for the four top team roster spots. Closer Chang-yong Lim, set-up man Tony Barnette, and outfielders Wladimir Balentien and Lastings Milledge are the other four players that Roman might be competing with.

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.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	F	H	E
Yomiuri	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	4	6	9
Tokyo	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	2	7
W: Utsumi (1-0) L: Ishikawa (0-1)

Uninspiring. Unhelpful. Unhappy. Unbe-Lim-able.

	Yomiuri		Tokyo
1	Sakamoto SS	1	Ueda LF
2	Terauchi 2B	2	Tanaka 2B
3	Chono CF	3	Aoki CF
4	Abe C	4	Hatakeyama 1B
5	Ramirez LF	5	Miyamoto 3B
6	Ogasawara 1B	6	Balentien RF
7	Tani RF	7	Morioka SS
8	Furuki 3B	8	Aikawa C
9	Utsumi P	9	Ishikawa P

Utsumi was in control of this game from the start. Everything that came off the bat in fair territory was Lim-p at best. He pitched six innings and gave up only three hits and one earned run (94 pitches). He was locked in and didn’t cry in the dugout as far as anyone has been able to tell.

Tokyo’s starter, Ishikawa, was reasonably solid through four and two-thirds innings (an Abe homer in the fourth notwithstanding), but he got yanked after giving up a suicide squeeze bunt to Utusmi which put the visitors up 2-0.

The one run that Utsumi surrendered came in the fifth when pinch-hitter Kawamoto came up with a two-out single to knock in one run. 2-1 Gomiuri.

But that was the extent of the threat from the home team as the cross-town visitors plated four runs in the top of the ninth to put the game out of reach and force a decisive Monday contest.

Surprisingly, Tokyo’s vaunted closer, Lim, did as poorly as he’s done all year by allowing three runs on his watch and a fourth after he had been sent packing.

Abe collected his third hit of the night on the second pitch he saw–an outside slider that ended up in right field.

Hashimoto then bunted him over, and Ogasawara followed with a fly-out to Aikawa (he caught it IN Yomiuri’s dugout).

Then with two outs, pinch-hitter Suzuki singled, and Furuki drew a walk.

It got ugly.

That left the bases juiced for Takahashi who came up with a double to center which scored three. 5-1 Yomiuri.

Lim was then replaced by Matsui (which is normally as unthinkable a switch as can possibly be fathomed), but he walked Sakamoto and allowed Takahashi to score on a Terauchi single to center. That ended up being Lim’s fourth earned run of the game, and that was basically it. 6-1 Yomiuri.

A pair of doubles in the bottom of the ninth (Morioka and Whitesell) meant that Tokyo was able to scrape a conciliatory run back, but that was all she wrote. 6-2 Final.

The home team never really got things going in this game and will likely lose tomorrow unless the team’s veteran’s step it up on offense.

Aoki and Hatakeyama have only one hit each thus far in the series, and Miyamoto is hitless. That has to change. Believe it or not, Morioka, Aikawa and Tanaka are leading the charge so far. Unbe-Lim-able.

To be fair, however, at least Hatake has collected a walk in each of the two games thus far. And Balentien drew as many in tonight’s contest (which is utterly unthinkable).

Tomorrow we’ll likely get to see a Gonzalez vs Akagawa showdown on the mound. Tokyo is going to win, but it never needed to get this far.

See you at Jingu!

There's always tomorrow.

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 pitcher Akagawa to face the Dragons hottest pitcher.

Akagawa got into trouble early in the game giving up back-to-back two out doubles to Hirata and Blanco to give up the early lead. 1-0 Dragons

Akagawa settled down and induced a ton of ground balls to short and third base and seemed to be in control. Meanwhile, the Swallows’ offensive ineptness continued as they only managed 3 hits off Yoshimi. The Swallows’ first “chance” came in the third when Ueda got a 2 out hit and stole second base. Tanaka couldn’t bring Ueda home as he popped up to second to end the threat. The second and only other chance of the night came after Ueda got a 1 out single in the sixth. After Tanaka’s grounder got Ueda to second, Aoki got an infield single to put men on first and second with 2 outs. Unfortunately the best Hatakeyama could do was fly out to center to end the threat.

It was around this time that Akagawa started to show signs of fatigue. After getting Hirata to foul out to begin the bottom of the sixth, Akagawa gave up a walk to Blanco. Tanishige followed with a hard line drive single to left, but luckily Blanco attempted to take third and was thrown out quite easily for the inning’s second out. Unfortunately Wada followed with a towering double off the centerfield wall that a jumping Aoki wasn’t able to catch to easily score Tanishige. 2-0 Dragons The Swallows then decided to intentionally walk Donoue, and Akagawa pitched around Oshima for another walk to face Yoshimi with 2 outs and the bases loaded. Akagawa struck out Oshima on 3 pitches to avoid any further damage.

Things got dicey again in the bottom of the seventh for Akagawa. After getting one out from Araki, Ibata singled to put a man on. Hirata bunted Ibata to second. The Swallows then intentionally walked Blanco, and called in Lim (yes, that Lim) to face Tanishige. The move surprised Tanishige, and his face after the ump reported the change to the scorer was perhaps the only highlight for the night. Lim got Tanishige to strike out to end the threat, and it was up to the Swallows offense to crack Yoshimi.

Needless to say, the Swallows’ offense did not rise to meet that challenge. Yoshimi got the Swallows to go down 1-2-3 in the eighth, and after Lim held things down for the Swallows in the bottom of the eight, Yoshimi got another 1-2-3 inning off Swallows to end the game.

Notes

• The Swallows were outscored 12-4 over the four game series and never once had a lead over the Dragons.
• The Dragons evened the season series to 10-10-3 with one more game to be played at Nagoya Dome.
• With a magic number of 2, the Swallows essentially need to count on the Dragons winning no more than 1 more of their 6 remaining games, while at the same time winning their remaining 5 to get the pennant. A fairly tall order the way things are going.
• I outlined our clinch scenarios for second place in the comments section of yesterday’s report. With a Tigers’ win tonight, those scenarios remain the same after tonight’s games. (Giants had the night off.)
• The Swallows will return home to face the Tigers in a one-off game tomorrow.

The Swallows have a lot to think about...

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.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	F	H	E
Tokyo	0	0	0	1	1	2	0	0	0	4	12	1
Yokohama	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	1	3	10	0
W: Hidaka (2-0) L: Takasaki (5-14) S: Lim (30)

	Tokyo		Yokohama
1	Aoki CF	1	Shimozono LF
2	Fukuchi LF	2	Watanabe SS
3	Kawabata SS	3	Tsutsugoh 1B
4	Hatakeyama 1B	4	Murata 3B
5	Balentien RF	5	Naito RF
6	Miyamoto 3B	6	Matsumoto CF
7	Tanaka 2B	7	Fujita 2B
8	Aikawa C	8	Hosoyamada C
9	Yamamoto P	9	Takasaki P

Tokyo opened the scoring on a solo Hatakeyama effort into the very top of the bleachers in left in the top of the fourth. His 23rd homer of the year made it 1-0 Tokyo.

But Yokohama answered in the bottom of the inning in the form of a Murata bomb into the visitor’s section. 1-1.

Straight pudding.

Then it was Tokyo’s turn. Aikawa’s second single in as many at-bats was followed by a Yamamoto sac bunt and an Aoki RBI double to put the Swallows back in front. 2-1 Tokyo.

But the home side replied once again. Watanabe’s two out infield single was later rewarded with an Aikawa throwing error when Watanabe was in the process of swiping second. Tsutsugoh then lofted one high off the wall in left for a double and the satisfaction of again leveling the score. 2-2.

Tokyo up again in the top of the sixth. After two outs from Hatakeyama and Balentien, Miyamoto, Tanaka and Aikawa showered left field with a double, a single and another double to plate two more runs and put the Swallows back in the lead. 4-2 Tokyo.

Yokohama didn’t answer for a while, but things got hairy in the bottom of the ninth with Lim on the mound trying to protecting the two run lead. After getting the first out on a pop fly to short, pinch-hitter, Aranami, fouled off most of what he saw and finally poked a grounder through the gap between short and third.

That was promptly followed by a soft Ide grounder to short that was a little too slow to be picked up and turned into an out. Shimozono then hit a fielder’s choice to short that very nearly became a game-ending 6-4-3 double play, but the throw to first didn’t make it in time, and the result was runners on the corners with two outs. Very unlucky for Lim, and bad news for Tokyo.

Watanabe then came to the plate representing the winning run. The 3-1 pitch is when he finally came through for the home team with a tricky one-hopper to Kawabata’s left. He got a glove on it, but couldn’t keep it in front of him, and Aranami scored from third. 3-2 Tokyo.

Runners on first and second, and Tsutsugoh at the plate. Tsutsugoh, who had already doubled twice off the wall in left, took a heavy swipe at the first high fastball he saw, and he  swung again at the next heater which was low and away. Both were fouled off behind him to temporarily put Lim in the driver’s seat.

But it wasn’t until Tsutsugoh had worked the count to 2-2 that Lim finally got a batter to swing at something in the dirt. This time it was a forkball, and the win was preserved. 3-2 Final.

Yamamoto (1-6; 3.96 ERA) didn’t figure in the final scoreline after throwing 90 pitches through four and two-thirds innings. He gave up two earned runs off of five hits and mixed in two strikeouts, four walks and a single wild pitch.

Instead, Hidaka got the win for his third of an inning and six pitches of work. It was his second win of the season, and his ERA budged slightly to 7.04.

Oshimoto (2.83 ERA) just barely held things together in the sixth before pitching a much more confident seventh, and Matsuoka (2.56) came through with a 1-2-3 inning in the eighth.

Lim recorded his 30th save of the 2011 season, and the one earned run pushed his ERA up to 2.25 through 59 appearances.

Tanaka, who was batting seventh for the first time in a long time, was selected as the hero of the game for his three hits and one RBI (the go-ahead run in the sixth). Aikawa had a similar day at the plate going 3-4 with an RBI of his own. Aoki and Kawabata also had multi-hit games with the former adding an RBI in the top of the fifth.

Tokyo have the day off tomorrow and will take on the Hanshin Tigers at Koshien from Tuesday to Thursday. They’ll be back at Jingu on Friday through Sunday for a three game series against the fifth place Hiroshima Carp.

Notes:

Thankfully the Swallows didn’t face pitching of the caliber that they saw on Friday. Yokohama’s Miura was his old self during that game. In this afternoon’s game, however, Tokyo faced friendlier pitching and outhit Yokohama 12-10.

Hatakeyama leads the league in RBIs (82) and walks (69).

Lim has reached the 30 save mark for the third time since joining Tokyo for the 2008 season.

Tanaka can be a good hitter when he doesn't have to bunt all the time.

]]> http://tokyoswallows.com/2011/10/02/10211-yokohama-away/feed/ 0 http://tokyoswallows.com/2011/09/29/92911-hanshin-home/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=92911-hanshin-home http://tokyoswallows.com/2011/09/29/92911-hanshin-home/#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:03:23 +0000 Christopher Pellegrini http://tokyoswallows.com/?p=10721 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 Hanshin Tigers.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	F	H	E
Hanshin	0	0	0	0	2	2	0	0	0	4	7	0
Tokyo	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	X	7	7	0
W: Oshimoto (2-2 1S) L: Nohmi (8-9) S: Lim (3-2 29S)

	Hanshin		Tokyo
1	Hirano 2B	1	Aoki CF
2	Shibata CF	2	Tanaka 2B
3	Toritani SS	3	Kawabata SS
4	Arai 3B	4	Hatakeyama 2B
5	Brazell 1B	5	Balentien RF
6	Murton RF	6	Miyamoto 3B
7	Kanemoto LF	7	Iihara LF
8	Komiyama C	8	Aikawa C
9	Nohmi P	9	Tateyama P

Tokyo started strongly in the first with Nohmi on the bump for Hanshin. Aoki singled and was Tak-bunted to second by Tanaka. Kawabata grounded out, and then Hatakeyama drew a walk to put last night’s savior, Balentien, at the plate with two out and two on.

Bang.

Balentien waited patiently on a Nohmi changeup that came drifting into the Coco Wheelhouse and it was homer number 30 of the season for Tokyo’s streaky big-man. 3-0 Tokyo.

Tokyo’s ace, Tateyama, who has struggled since coming back from a hand injury, looked sharp early on. He went ten batters before finally letting a runner on base–a Shibata single in the top of the fourth.

But as good as Tateyama was, Nohmi was better. After that meatball he served to Belentien, Nohmi was lights out for a long, long time. After the first inning, he didn’t allow another Tokyo runner to touch first base until Aoki drew a walk in the sixth.

The visitors, on the other hand, found a way to get to Tateyama who struggled a little bit with locating his pitches. A Kanemoto homer in the fifth brought in two, and three base hits in the sixth amounted to a complete reversal of fortunes. 4-3 Hanshin.

But just like Tuesday and Wednesday, there was little reason to worry.

Nohmi was finally bundled out of the game in the eigth, an inning in which the Swallows put together one hell of a rally and condemned the visiting Tigers to their second consecutive sweep at Jingu Stadium in a single month.

When was the last time that happened? Someone please check for me because I need to go to bed.

Keizo Kawashima, pinch hitting for Tateyama, started things off by drawing a walk off of Nohmi. Aoki followed with his second single of the game to put runners on first and second with no outs. Tanaka dutifully followed with his third sacrifice bunt of the game (the first two were Tak-bunts, but this one was a legit sac bunt because a runner moved over to third in the process). With runners on second and third, the 0-3 Kawabata took his place in the batters box.

As Kozo mentioned to us just before Kawabata left the on-deck circle, Nohmi had owned Kawabata all game long. In other words, Tokyo’s young shortstop was due. And boy did he come through!

Number 36 passed on the first pitch he saw, a fastball just outside the zone. He guessed correctly on the next pitch (something offspeed), and was lucky to get a forkball that didn’t have quite enough spin on it. The result was a line drive that just stayed fair along the right field stripe. Two runs scored. 5-4 Tokyo.

With Kawabata on second, Hatakeyama hit a single to right that put runners on the corners and again presented Balentien with an opportunity.

After working a full count, Coco punted the fourth sinker that he saw (the first two were balls, the third he fanned on) deep into center for a sac fly and his fourth RBI of the game. 6-4 Tokyo.

The scoring finally came to a close on Miyamoto’s double to left. 7-4 Final.

Lim worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his 29th save on 17 pitches.

The win went to Oshimoto who finished the final third of the eighth inning for Tateyama. He threw six pitches in recording the final out.

Tokyo owns the Tigers for the second time this month.

One thing that made this game extra-enjoyable to watch was observing all of the Hanshin fans lining the sides of the tunnel after the Swallows had their big eighth inning. The stream of fans was impressive, and the abuse being hurled at the their team (and particularly their manager, Mayumi) was very clearly audible on the other side of the stadium.

No wonder the Jingu security folks have elected to escort certain members of the Hanshin cadre out of the stadium the last couple of nights. Pure comedy.

Tokyo heads just a bit south tomorrow to take on the Yokohama BayStars once again. The Chunichi Dragons just keep on winning, so the BayStars are anything but a vacation. Count on Chunichi to pose major problems for the Tigers this weekend and threaten to pull a game or two closer.

As of today, the Swallows lead the Dragons by three games. Home field advantage throughout the playoffs is the prize here folks.

]]> http://tokyoswallows.com/2011/09/29/92911-hanshin-home/feed/ 3 http://tokyoswallows.com/2011/09/28/92811-%e2%80%93-hanshin-home/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=92811-%25e2%2580%2593-hanshin-home http://tokyoswallows.com/2011/09/28/92811-%e2%80%93-hanshin-home/#comments Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:35:58 +0000 Kozo http://tokyoswallows.com/?p=10725 September 28th, 2011

Hanshin Tigers 5

Tokyo Swallows 8

Streak: Won 3  Last 5: LLWWW

(Meiji Jingu Stadium)

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	F	H	E
Tigers	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	2	0	5	11	1
Swallows	0	2	0	0	0	6	0	0	X	8	6	2
WP: K. Matsui (3-0) LP: Akiyama (0-1) S: Lim (28)

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 starts against the Swallows last year, in his rookie season, and the Tigers were looking to use that mojo against the Swallows. The result was another strange game which saw the Swallows come back from a one run deficit in a big way.

	Tigers		Swallows
1	2B Hirano	1	CF Aoki
2	CF Shibata	2	2B Tanaka
3	SS Toritani	3	SS Kawabata
4	3B Arai	4	1B Hatakeyama
5	1B Brazell	5	RF Balentien
6	RF Murton	6	3B Miyamoto
7	LF Kanemoto	7	LF Takeuchi
8	C Fujii	8	C Aikawa
9	P Kubo	9	P Shichijo

Things started well enough in the first for both pitchers, but things got a little shaky in the second. Shichijo allowed a one out hit to Murton. He got Kanemoto to fly out to Aikawa for out number two, but loaded the bases by giving up back-to-back singles to Fujii and Akiyama (!). Shichijo managed to get out of the jam by getting Hirano to fly out to shortstop. However, giving up 3 hits in one inning was not inspiring confidence in the crowd.

Akiyama ran into his own jam in the second, allowing a lead off single to Hatakeyama and following that up with a walk to Balentien. Miyamoto bunted the men forward for the first out, and Takeuchi failed to score anyone by popping out to second. The Tigers elected to intentionally walk Aikawa to face Shichijo. This should have worked as Akiyama got Shichijo to sky the ball in front of home plate. But as it has been the case this season, the Swallows caught a hilariously lucky break as Fujii failed to catch the ball, and Hatakeyama and Balentien who were running because of the 2 out situation managed to score. 2-0 Swallows Akiyama loaded the bases again by walking Aoki, but Tanaka wasn’t able to further the damage.

The lead did nothing to settle Shichijo, and things went south right away. The rookie started off the third with a walk to Shibata, and Toritani quickly followed with a single to put 2 men on with no out. Just 2 pitches later, the Tigers had the lead via a Arai home run to left. 3-2 Tigers Shichijo subsequently walked Brazell to end his night. Yasuhiro Ichiba, making his first ichi-gun appearance in 2 years, was called in to hold things down for the Swallows. Ichiba got the rest of the Tigers order to go down 1-2-3, and kept the deficit to 1.

Akiyama settled down, and while he allowed single runners in the third and fourth, he got through the next 3 innings without much problem. On the Swallows’ side, Ichiba pitched one more inning of relatively uneventful ball before handing off to Kosuke Matsui. Matsui pitched the fifth and sixth inning and gave up only a single while striking out 3 to keep the game close.

Things turned in the bottom of the sixth, with Akiyama walking Hatakeyama to start the inning. Two pitches later, Balentien launched a monster home run to the Tiger fans in left field that words simply cannot describe. So just check the video…

4-3 Swallows Like Shichijo Akiyama was allowed to face one more batter. A hit by Miyamoto ended his night night, but the Swallows were just getting warmed up. The Tigers sent Fujihara up to the mound to face Takeuchi, who gifted the Tigers an out by bunting Miyamoto to second. Miyamoto came around after Aikawa doubled to left. 5-3 Swallows Keizo came in to bat in the pitcher’s spot and got a straight walk from Fujihara. With 1 out and men on first and second, Aoki took a 1-0 pitch from Fujihara and lined it over the shallow playing center fielder for a triple. 7-3 Swallows The Tigers pulled Fujihara for Nishimura, but Nishimura couldn’t stop Tanaka from launching a 0-2 pitch for a sac fly to finish the scoring. 8-3 Swallows

The Swallows handed the ball to Oshimoto to pitch the seventh, and he did his job by keeping the Tigers off the board. Tsutsui pitched a 3 K seventh for the Tigers. Matsuoka came into the game in the eighth, and things got weird. Matt Murton opened the inning with his third single of the night. Matsuoka got Kanemoto to line out to second for the first out, and it looked like Matsuoka got the pinch hitting Lin to ground into a double play to second. Unfortunately the usually sure-handed Tanaka fumbled the ball towards second, and all men were safe. The second out came via a Hiyama fly out to right, but things got hairier when an infield single by Hirano loaded the bases. Matsuoka got 2 strikes on Shibata, and it looked like things were headed towards another nerve-wracking, but ultimately harmless inning by Matsuoka. That thought was seemingly realized when Matsuoka got Shibata to swing at a pitch in the dirt for strike three. Unfortunately Aikawa let the ball get past him, and the runners were in motion. Aikawa decided to throw the ball from a weird angle to first and hit Shibata with the ball instead. The deflected ball allowed another runner to cross home, and the Tigers suddenly had 2 runs on the board. 8-5 Swallows Matsuoka got Toritani to fly out harmlessly to Tanaka for the final out of the inning.

Kojima pitched a perfect eighth for the Tigers, and Lim got his 28th save in the ninth to close out the game for their 28th come from behind victory of the year. The Tigers’ faithful quickly lined the path the Tigers’ players and coaches pass to get out of the stadium and their verbal abuse towards Mayumi and the players almost overshadowed Balentien and Tsubakuro’s good time.

Another fun night at Jingu for the Swallows!!!

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. 2-0 Swallows Apparently Hatakeyama’s home run was the 45,000th in Central League history, a number that is ultimately meaningless and arbitrary. Those back-to-back hits would account for 40% of the team’s hits tonight, and 33% of the team’s baserunners. With offensive numbers like that, it falls on the pitching to win the game.

Masubuchi managed to limit the damage caused by his 4 hits and 4 walks allowed in the night. However, Masubuchi did allow a run after Oshima made Masubuchi pay for issuing two walks, with a double to score one. 2-1 Swallows Yet despite the constant stream of baserunners, Masubuchi managed to hand off the game to Kyuko with 2 outs in the sixth having only given up 1 run. Kyuko did his job by getting the final out in the sixth by picking off Morino on second to preserve the Swallows’ razor thin margin.

However, the next cog in the reliever relay failed the Swallows, as Kosuke Matsui allowed a lead off homer to a pinch hitting Hirata to open the seventh. 2-2 All Matsui made things even hairier by allowing 2 more hits to go with 2 outs. Hidaka wasn’t much relief as he walked Morino to load the bases. Matsuoka took over for Hidaka and got the final out to preserve the tie. Matsuoka proceeded to pitch a cardiac eighth as he allowed two base runners, but managed to clean up his own mess to keep the score tied for Lim in the ninth.

With the top of the Dragons’ order batting to start the ninth, it was incumbent on the Swallows’ highest paid player to preserve the tie to give the Swallows some semblance of dignity. To that end Lim allowed an infield single to Araki, who moved to second on an Ibata bunt for out number 1. The Swallows elected to intentionally walk Morino to get the double play in order and face Blanco. Lim managed to retire Blanco on a fly to center to get within an out of preserving the tie. But all it took was one pitch and one swing of the bat by Tanishige to ruin the night for the Swallows. Tanishige got a line drive single to left that scored Araki for the Dragons’ 6th sayonara victory of the year. Iihara had a chance to throw Araki out, but his throw wasn’t even close. 3-2 Dragons It was only the Swallows’ second sayonara loss of the year.

With 3 straight losses to the Dragons the Swallows saw their league lead shrink to just 1.5 games.

The Dragons celebrate their win. Hopefully the Swallows would like to celebrate their own wins again.

Yokohama BayStars 2

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 2

Streak: Tied 1  Last 5: WWWWT

(Jingu Stadium)

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
YB	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	2	10	1
TS	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	2	8	0

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.

	Yokohama		Tokyo
1	Watanabe (2B)	1	Aoki (CF)
2	Ishikawa (SS)	2	Tanaka (2B)
3	Shimozono (LF)	3	Kawabata (SS)
4	Murata (3B)	4	Hatakeyama (1B)
5	Tsutsugo (1B)	5	Takeuchi (LF)
6	Matsumoto (CF)	6	Miyamoto (3B)
7	Kinjoh (RF)	7	Balentien (RF)
8	Kurobane (C)	8	Aikawa (C)
9	Miura (P)	9	Ishikawa (P)

The scoring:
Kinjoh hit a solo home run in the top of the second. 1-0 Yokohama.

In the bottom of the third, with two outs and Aoki on second, Kawabata hit an RBI double. 1-1.

The BayStars immediately opened up a gap again. In the top of the fourth, with two outs, Kurobane hit a solo home run. 2-1 Yokohama.

In the bottom of the sixth, Tanaka led off with a single, which was followed by another Kawabata RBI double. 2-2, Final.

Ishikawa was pulled in the top of the seventh after giving one hit. Matsui took the mound, walked Murata to put runners on first and second, and was pulled in favor of Oshimoto. Oshimoto filled the bases with a walk and Matsumoto was brought in to get Harper to ground into a 6-6-3 double play to end the inning.

The bottom of the seventh was also exciting: Whitesell doubled, then reached third on a wild pitch to Aoki, who went on to walk, but no runs scored.

Matsuoka pitched the eighth; Kyuko pitched the first 2/3 of the ninth, but was pulled for Lim when he got into a bit of trouble.

More Yokohama action tomorrow.

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 team that has frustrated Tokyo for the best part of this season.

Us:

1. Aoki (CF)
   

   Akagawa - only 21

2. Tanaka (2B)
3. Kawabata (SS)
4. Hatakeyama (1B)
5. Ihara (LF)
6. Miyamoto (3B)
7. Balentien (RF)
8. Aikawa (C)
9. Akagawa (P)

In the bottom of the same inning a single and a walk put two men on with two outs for Ishihara, but Akagawa was able to strikeout the Carp catcher to keep the scores tied at zero.

And so to the 6th, when the scoring would begin for the Swallows. Back-to-back singles from Miyamoto and Balentien put two men on before Ogawa continued the recent worrying trend by getting Aikawa to lay down a bunt to bring up the pitcher. With the two men now in scoring positions, Akagawa struck out for out number two, which brought Aoki to the plate. He dribbled one up the middle, Miyamoto made it home with ease, while Balentien also scored after a quality catcher-evading slide home for 2-0 Tokyo.

That lead was halved with the bottom of the inning’s first pitch, as Barden clubbed a high fastball almost out of the stadium in left, 2-1.

But that first half of the season Tokyo resilience that seems to have returned in September was displayed in the 7th. With reliever Kikuchihara now on the mound, Kawabata hit a grounder to first, but the pitcher seemed to tweak something in his foot as he tried to cover first, Kurihara had nowhere to throw the fielded ball and Shingo was safely on base.

Ex-Seibu/Yomiuri hack Toyoda then took the mound in place of his injured colleague and he kindly left a forkball right over the plate for birthday boy Hatakeyama, the ball sailed into the leftfield stands and Hatake had himself a 4-1 Tokyo scoreline for his 29th birthday present. It was his 18th homer of a break-out year for the big man, and the two RBIs moved him past Hiroshima’s Kurihara to sit atop the CL RBI table with 73.

After that Oshimoto (2.89) and Matsuoka (2.94) worked a scoreless inning each in relief before Lim (2.20) got the job done in the 9th, despite giving up two two-out singles (the first of which was rather unlucky), for a 4-1 Tokyo Final. It was Lim’s 25th save of the year.

Akagawa (6IP/120P/3H/5K/3BB/1ER) took away his third win of an ever improving season and his record now sits at 3-1/2.02.

The birthday boy celebrates his two-run shot

The Swallows outhit the Carp 10-6, with Aoki (.293), Kawabata (.273) and Balentien (.246) with two each. Aoki seems to be re-discovering the quality player within him, Kawabata is continuing to prove the naysayers wrong by being productive in the no.3 slot, while Balentien seems to have re-discovered his confidence and thus patience at the plate as well as making a great running catch in the field in the 5th.

So positives aplenty then.

With Yokohama beating Yomiuri (get in!!) and Chunichi beating an ailing Hanshin, it is now the Dragons who seem the greatest threat of the ever-fluid second to fifth placed teams, sitting 5 games behind the Swallows in second place. Yomiuri are now 6.5 games behind Tokyo in 3rd, Hanshin 8 games back in 4th, while Hiroshima are 11 games back in 5th. Not quite as close as it was just a couple of weeks ago eh?

The two teams will be back at the same time/place tomorrow evening to do it again with the season series now tied at 8-8.

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 second win with a 97-pitch, 4-hit, 6-strike out, no-walk seven innings – his best showing of late.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	F	H	E
TS	2	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	4	7	1
YB	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	6	1

	Tokyo		Yokohama
1	Aoki (CF)	1	Shimozono (RF)
2	Tanaka (2B)	2	Ishikawa (SS)
3	Kawabata (SS)	3	Sledge (LF)
4	Hatakeyama (1B)	4	Murata (3B)
5	Takeuchi (LF)	5	Nakamura (1B)
6	Miyamoto (3B)	6	Kinjoh (CF)
7	Balentien (RF)	7	Watanabe (2B)
8	Aikawa (C)	8	Kurobane (C)
9	Akagawa (P)	9	Kuniyoshi (P)

For 69, and the lead.

The game started well. Aoki was walked and, as always, Tanaka bunted, but what’s this? He reached base. No waste. Instead, surprise and joy. (Anytime Tanaka, who can hit, follows an Aoki success by not intentionally getting out, it’s a cause for celebration.)

Tanaka having missed the opportunity to give away an out, Kawabata did so and moved both runners into scoring position. Hatakeyama followed this with a hard grounder into center field for a single and two RBIs, which brought him to 69 for the season so far: best in the CL. 2-0 Tokyo.

Over the next four innings, Akagawa pitched well, Kuniyoshi not quite as well, and there were no real offensive stand-outs.

In the sixth, Hatake walked. Takeuchi sac-bunted him to second. Miyamoto popped out to right. Balentien walked. Aikawa then hit a line drive to right, bringing Hatake home, but not Balentien, who got nabbed. 3-0 Tokyo.

In the eighth, after Miyamoto popped out, Balentien singled, Aikawa pulled off a successful hit-and-run, and Iihara hit an RBI sac-fly. Aoki then popped out on the first pitch he faced. Even away, some in the Tokyo side are not about to give him any love when he does well, much less when he does that kind of junk. 4-0 Tokyo, Final.

Matsuoka pitched the eighth, giving up two hits and notching one K. Lim closed with a flawless 18-pitch 1-2-3 ninth to wrap up the win.

Same again tomorrow.