An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
Spring camp started for the top team in Okinawa today. Here’s a list of the players that were invited. The Swallows’ Japanese website has a handy schedule that will give you a light peak into what’s ahead for the team. The top team camp has only four officially-scheduled days off, and camp concludes on February 28th. [...]
Chunichi Dragons Free agent LHP Wei-ying Chen signed with Baltimore. It’s a three-year deal that consequently puts a serious dent in Chunichi’s ability to keep opposing teams off the board. Cheers to that! Yomiuri Giants Sounds like the Giants may be about to sign utility INF/OF John Bowker who was recently released by the Phillies. [...]
Welcome to the Monday Review, in which we’ll look back at the week that was and look ahead to the week that will be. We hope a recurring weekly review column will help readers identify some trends that can’t be covered in a single game report. We’re still trying to work out the format, so [...]
April 21st, 2009 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 0 Yomiuri Giants 4 Streak: Lost 1 Last 5: WWWWL (Nagasaki Big N Stadium) On paper this was never going to be an easy game in which to put a four game winning streak on the line. The pitching matchup was ominous, Swallows old-boy Seth Greisinger against veteran [...]
April 15th, 2009 Yomiuri Giants 6 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 2 Streak: Lost 2 Last 5: WLWLL (Jingu Stadium) Tokyo left a bunch of guys on base tonight and weren’t able to apply pressure in the later innings of the game. So the inaugural edition of the annual Tokyo derby, unlike last year, ended up being [...]
Know what’s a heartbreaker? Seeing the Central League MVP and Best Nine announcements and seeing that a third of the Best Nine, the MVP, and the best pitcher in the CL are all Giants, then realizing that that would be true of the Swallows had Tokyo been willing to pay a bit and offer multi-year [...]
October 22nd, 2008 Chunichi Dragons 4 Yomiuri Giants 3 (Tokyo Dome) Chunichi came up with some clutch play to level this series at one game apiece.* Shockingly, it took Yomiuri starter, Seth Greisinger, 101 pitches to get through four and one-third innings during which he gave up three runs (two earned) off of five hits. [...]
