An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
Shinya Miyamoto and his teammates have been busy with spring camp for the past two weeks, so we thought it might be nice to profile some of the Tokyo players that are within shouting distance of significant milestones this season. We’ve thought for quite some time that Miyamoto would begin regressing at any moment, but [...]
Yakult, Tokyo’s parent company, surprised many when it decided to post Norichika Aoki after the 2011 season. Why? Aoki won’t have the service time to earn international free agency until partway through the 2013 season, so most Tokyo fans were expecting another year at Jingu Stadium for the team’s perennial Golden Glove, Best Nine and [...]
The 2009 WBC final will be between Japan and Korea after Japan rolled over a lackluster USA team in the second semi-final at Dodger Stadium. A five run 4th inning did the bulk of the damage for the Japanese, damage from which the USA never recovered despite a late attempt at a comeback. Daisuke Matsuzaka [...]
A day after being brushed aside so easily by Korea, Japan had to pick themselves up to face the Cubans for the second time in four days. This time however, there were no second chances, the loser would be heading home. Japan rode to victory three days earlier on the back of six innings of five hit [...]
This one did not start well for Yu Darvish and team Japan. Darvish threw far more balls than strikes in the first inning of this game. His first three pitches were balls above the strike zone, and his first two pitches to Korea’s second, third and fourth batters were outside the zone. Behind in the [...]
Well, where do I start? Let’s start with the afternoon game, which saw China shock Taipei 4-1 to send Terry Collins’ Chinese team through to Sunday’s game to face the loser of the big one, Japan vs Korea. Taipei were never really in the game and have looked listless during their two outings, scoring just [...]
