An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
March 30th, 2012 Tokyo Swallows 6 Yomiuri Giants 3 Streak: Won 2 Last 5: WW— (Tokyo Dome) After last night’s strong pitching win, the bats came alive to cover for one shaky inning by Muranaka. Both teams came out with the same lineup as yesterday, with sophomore Sawamura pitching for the Giants and Muranaka starting [...]
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 [...]
Here are a few things that you might not remember about the players currently on the Tokyo roster: In Fukuchi’s first year with the Swallows (2008), he hit .320/.366/.449. Keizo Kawashima stole 20 bags in his first year with the team (2008) while only getting caught once. However, in 2009 he stole eight but got [...]
The team reported that it would likely use the US$2.5 million dollars if received from the Milwaukee Brewers to help improve the farm team facilities. It was not reported whether all or part of the posting fee would be put towards stadium improvements. There is also a rumor flying around that Hatakeyama has requested a [...]
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 6th, 2011 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 8 Yokohama BayStars 3 Streak: Won 1 Last 5: WWWLW (Yokohama Stadium) If Tokyo have any pretensions of taking the Central League title this year, then they need to win a majority of their six games with Yokohama in September. And tonight they made a pretty good start on the road [...]
August 17th, 2011 Yokohama BayStars 10 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 10 Streak: Tied 1 Last 5: LWLWT (Jingu Stadium) Tokyo is certainly in the entertainment business. I was prepared to ponder Kawabata’s batting third and to make up for my discounting of Shichijo’s previous outing, which was solid. Instead, I find myself thinking more of [...]
After taking a bit of a hiatus because of the All Star break and subsequent personal vacation, the Monday Review is back! A lot has happened since the last Monday Review, the team has come back down to earth despite seeing many key players return from injury. The team is 5-10-3 since the All Star [...]
August 13th, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 8 Hanshin Tigers 2 Streak: Won 1 Last 5:LWLLW (Jingu) After the last few dismal performance, the Swallows finally figure out the Tigers. Line-ups Yakult Aoki CF Tanaka 2B Kawabata SS Hatakeyama LF Whitesell 1B Miyamoto 3B Balentien RF Aikawa C Yoshinori P Hanshin Murton RF Hirano [...]
August 7th, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 2 Hanshin Tigers 5 Streak: Lost 4 Last 5: DLLLL (Kyocera Dome) The Birds try to salvage at least one win against the 2nd place Tigers, before riding the shinkansen south to Hiroshima. Tokyo: 1. Kawashima (SS) 2. Aoki (CF) 3. Hatakeyama (LF) 4. Whitesell (1B) 5. Takeuchi (RF) [...]
