An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
April 22nd, 2012 Yomiuri Giants 2 Tokyo Swallows 3 Streak: Won 3 Last 5: WLWWW (Jingu Stadium) Sweep! Sweep! Sweep! Sweep! Sweeeeeeeeeeeeep! Roman finally got his first NPB ‘W’ in his fourth start of the year and second this week. Despite the rain, this was another enjoyable game to watch for the Swallows fans in [...]
April 20th, 2012 Yomiuri Giants 1 Tokyo Swallows 2 Streak: Won 1 Last 5: WLWLW (Jingu Stadium) Tokyo entered this series having just lost an away series at Koshien, and were looking to get things back on track against the very unbalanced fifth-placed Yomiuri Giants. This game didn’t start well at all for Muranaka and [...]
April 17th, 2012 Tokyo Swallows 0 Hanshin Tigers 4 Streak: Lost 1 Last 5: LLWWL (Hotto Motto Field Kobe) After two good wins against the Carp this last weekend, Tokyo returned to the kind of baseball that saw them lose last week’s series against the Baystars. The impotent bat kind. In fairness to those [...]
Something for you to read while fielding offers for a more appropriate gig. Swallows of the Week Week 2 Ishikawa was the week one MVP, but he tanked after that. Hopefully the same fate does not await the winner of the week two polling. 31 people voted this time around, and they had five choices: Shingo [...]
April 14th, 2012 Hiroshima Carp 1 Tokyo Swallows 10 Streak: Won 1 Last 5: WWLLW (Matsuyama) The birds’ first game of the year against the fish was a home-away-from-home game in Matsuyama, a fortunate choice of location given the constant rain that cancelled every other game in the Kanto region. Your Tokyo [...]
April 10th, 2012 Yokohama Baystars 1 Tokyo Swallows 2 Streak: Won 3 Last 5: LLWWW (Meiji Jingu Stadium) After leaving Nagoya with a magnificent hard-fought series win against the Dragons, the Swallows returned to Jingu to take on the perennially struggling Baystars. And while they huffed and puffed, they eventually blew the YOKOHAMA DeNA [...]
Homepage Layout A couple of very small changes have occurred on the homepage of this fair website. We moved the Central League standings plugin to the footer area and added a Pacific League widget as well. We also started a Swallows of the Week list down in the footer. The winner of week one voting [...]
April 8th, 2012 Tokyo Swallows 3 Chunichi Dragons 1 Streak: Won 2 Last 5: LDLWW (Nagoya Dome) Tokyo’s struggles at Nagoya Dome are long-documented on this site, so last night’s 2-1 win over the 2011 Central League Champs on their home turf was a wonderful sigh of relief. But Tokyo’s birds gave you something else [...]
April 7th, 2012 Tokyo Swallows 2 Chunichi Dragons 1 Streak: Won 1 Last 5: LLDLW (Nagoya Dome) If I was to assign a word to each of Tokyo’s opening six games of the 2012 season, I’d likely go with: excellence, spirited, wasteful, meltdown, hill-billy and deja-vu. And so for today’s game we’ll go with……GET IN!!! Oh, [...]
April 4th, 2012 Hanshin Tigers 5 Tokyo Swallows 5 Streak: Tied 1 Last 5: WWLD- (Meiji Jingu Stadium) Some ties you’re happy to get, some are a letdown; the box score lets you know which one the Birds’ delayed home opener was. Tateyama took the mound for Tokyo and got off to a pleasing [...]
