An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
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, [...]
Hello, Tokyo fans! Here’s something for you to read while trying to be cool. The season has started and your birds are off to a decent start. This past weekend they largely embarrassed crosstown rivals, Yomiuri, in a three-game series at the stain-dome, and they’re now looking ahead to an infestation of Hanshin maniacs starting [...]
March 30th, 2012 Tokyo Swallows 6 Yomiuri Giants 3 Streak: Won 2 Last 5: WW— (Tokyo Dome) After last night’s strong pitching win, the bats came alive to cover for one shaky inning by Muranaka. Both teams came out with the same lineup as yesterday, with sophomore Sawamura pitching for the Giants and Muranaka starting [...]
March 30th, 2012 Tokyo Swallows Yomiuri Giants Streak: Won 1 Last 5: W—- (MLB STADIUM JAPAN; aka TOKYO DOME) Opening Night in Japan…and two outs away from a no-hitter After two of the AL West teams opened their season in Japan, Tokyo was anxious to see their two teams open the season. Loyal supporters of [...]
Swallows Present As mentioned in our most recent podcast, Balentien could start the year on the top team. Because he’s starting to show some life at the plate, mixed with Roman’s continued stability on the mound, and abetted by Lim’s tender throwing arm, Tokyo’s well-paid closer could start the year on the farm instead. Yet [...]
Happy Coming-of-Age Day to all of the 20-year-olds out there who are celebrating today. Be sure to post a photo of yourself in the comments all decked out in your old-enough-to-vote garb. And don’t drink too much tonight. This website has been very preoccupied with Norichika Aoki news as of late, and Lastings Milledge has [...]
There were rumblings back on December 27th in the Japanese press, just after the team went public with their successful acquisition of outfielder Lastings Milledge, that Tokyo was in the market for a starting pitcher import. Patrick Newman over at NPB Tracker, thanks in part to a helpful tweet, has once again tipped us off [...]
