An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
June 14th, 2010 Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters 3 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 8 Streak: Won 5 Last 5: WWWWW (Meiji Jingu Stadium) When this game was originally scheduled to be played (May 23rd), Takada was still at the helm, the birds had just gotten whupped by Chiba 20-4, and the team was in the midst [...]
June 12th, 2010 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 4 Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles 1 Streak: Won 3 Last 5: WLWWW (Kleenex Stadium Miyagi) The Swallows now have themselves a three-game winning streak–a feat that first took place back in March after an opening day defeat. That first three-game run was extended to four, but that fourth [...]
June 20th, 2009 Saitama Seibu Lions 4 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 5 Streak: Won 6 Last 5: WWWWW (Jingu Stadium) Tonight was a good-ole’, extra-innings game, and you need to know only two words in order to understand all the fun that it entailed: Jamie D’Antona.
May 22nd, 2009 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3 Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters 2 Streak: Won 1 Last 5: WWWLW (Sapporo Dome) In what was initially thought to be a Darvish-Tateyama faceoff, Swallows fans were a bit relieved to hear that former Tokyo southpaw, Shugo Fujii, would be taking the mound instead. Not that Fujii (3-2; 4.50) isn’t [...]
Well, this year’s Interleague schedule, which pitted Yakult against the boys from the (stronger) Pacific League for a month or so, is now over. So how did we fare? Erm, not so well. The Swallows finished 9th out of the NPB’s 12 teams. The PL teams as a whole beat the CL teams 73 games [...]
