An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
Team News No idea whether this is for real or not, but Ogawa has said that he likes having Yuhei around because he can be used in the outfield or as a pitcher (LHP). Yuhei was a top pitching prospect that never panned out for the Swallows. He started working on converting to the outfield [...]
Tokyo Swallows Wladimir Balentien is having some right elbow issues and hasn’t been able to practice at 100%. It seems like Ogawa is starting to get a little impatient (link in Japanese). Balentien didn’t play in Tokyo’s pre-season game against Hanshin on Saturday. Tokyo beat Hokkaido 3-0 in a practice game on Thursday February 23rd. [...]
For information purposes, and of course discussion, I have translated the first half of a list ranking the top 40 prospects in NPB as per this rather new site. Note that Tokyo has two prospects in the top 20. 1. Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh (Yokohama – INF) 2. Takahiro Fujioka (Chiba – LHP)* 3. Yuki Kuniyoshi (Yokohama – [...]
We posted a poll on the 25th asking you some general questions about the state of affairs with the team. Aoki’s gone, and there are some question marks hanging over the team as spring camp gets under way down in Urasoe, Okinawa. We here at Tsubamegun tend to see these question marks as opportunities, and [...]
November 5th, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 1 Chunichi Dragons 5 Series: Chunichi 3-2 Tokyo (Nagoya Dome) The Swallows’ thin starting “rotation” was finally exposed tonight as Akagawa was forced to start on 4 days rest. The Dragons countered with lefty Yudai Kawai. The Swallows elected to continue starting rookie Yamada at shortstop batting leadoff. The rookie [...]
As if things weren’t already bad enough on the injury front, Tokyo has at least one new headache to deal with. It was reported in the Chunichi Sports online paper that second year infielder, Takahiro Araki, sustained a fractured left ankle during practice. He will miss all future 2011 games. We covered this a bit [...]
UPDATED: January 13, 2011 Since the end of the season, the Swallows have lost some players through cuts and retirement, the team has also gained some players through free agency and the draft. The team also managed to keep Chang-Yong Lim by resigning him to a lucrative contract. We have covered some of these moves, [...]
The 2010 NPB draft took place on October 28th, as planned. Unfortunately not a lot else went as planned for the Swallows. As expected the Swallows threw their hat into the Yuki Saito sweepstakes. They were joined by the Nippon Ham Fighters, the Chiba Lotte Marines, and the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. Our manager Ogawa, armed [...]
