Semi-official injury count for the month of February at the Tokyo Swallows spring camp: 11 players missed all or part of at least one day of practice. In detail, that works out to six pitchers, four catchers, and one infielder. Go, go Swallows! While the six injured pitchers may set off the loudest alarm for [...]

March 19th, 2009 Saitama Seibu Lions 7 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 8 Streak: Won 3       Last 5: LDWWW (Jingu Stadium) Jamie D’Antona made a very powerful argument for why he deserves the cleanup slot in the batting order today. His first two at-bats of the game resulted in home runs, the first to right and [...]

March 18th, 2009 Saitama Seibu Lions 1 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 9 Streak: Won 2       Last 5: WLDWW (Jingu Stadium) The birds got the offense going early in one of the day’s four forgotten games (if you want to know what everyone in Japan was actually paying attention to, please scroll down to the next game [...]

March 17th, 2009 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 7 Yomiuri Giants 6 Streak: Won 1     Last 5: LWLDW (Gifu) Tokyo nearly let this one get away.

March 15th, 2009 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 2 Hiroshima Toyo Carp 2 Streak: Tied 1     Last 5: LLWLD (Onomichi) Ryo Kawashima started and pitched five innings of seven hit, two run baseball. Other vitals include four K’s against one walk plus one wild pitch. Tokyo’s relievers were rock solid this afternoon. Igarashi and Hashimoto [...]

March 5th, 2009 Tokyo Yakult Swallows  5  Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters  2 Streak: Won 1   Last 4: WWLW (Sapporo Dome) Three Tokyo players had two-hit games, and the pitching staff only gave up a pair of runs in Tokyo’s second half of a two-day stay up in Hokkaido. Impressively, more than 10,000 people turned out for the [...]

March 4th, 2009 Tokyo Yakult Swallows  4  Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters  5 Streak: Lost 1   Last 3: WWL (Sapporo Dome) The highlight of this game, from our perspective anyway, was Ishikawa. He started, threw only 41 pitches and retired all 12 batters he faced. Guiel provided the only offense of the game to that point with a [...]

March 1st, 2009 Yokohama BayStars 3 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 4 Streak: Won 2 Last 5: WW (Urasoe) Tokyo won this game on a walk-off single to left care of infield utility man Yoshiyuki Noguchi (IF). Tokyo had gone into the top of the 9th nursing a one run advantage when

February 28th, 2009 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 6 Chunichi Dragons 3 Streak: Won 1 Last 5: W (Chatan) The NPB pre-season games kicked off today, and not a moment too soon for many of us! Tokyo’s first game of the pre-season schedule, which stretches until March 29th, was against the Chunichi Dragons. As is often the [...]