An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
October 1st, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 3 Yokohama BayStars 10 Streak: Lost 2 Last 5: WWWLL (Yokohama Stadium) Things were not pretty as the Swallows’ young bullpen arms were exposed to the BayStars’ bats. Akagawa seemed to have a handle of things in the early going. Even the solo homerun he gave up to Tsutsugo [...]
September 30th, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 0 Yokohama BayStars 5 Streak: L1 Last 5: WWWWL (Yokohama Stadium) Swallows finish up the month of September 17-7-1 (with one rain out). This included the mind-blowing 12-1 start to the month. In tonight’s game, we saw Masubuchi on the hill for the Birds, while Miura was the ‘Stars hurler. As [...]
September 28th, 2011 Hanshin Tigers 5 Tokyo Swallows 8 Streak: Won 3 Last 5: LLWWW (Meiji Jingu Stadium) The Swallows sent Shichijo to the mound after a 1 month stint in Toda, while the Tigers elected to send young Takumi Akiyama to the mound for his first start of the season. Akiyama had two strong [...]
After looking at the big earners in part one, and the upwardly mobile in part two, in this final part of our annual monetary review, we’ll be looking at those whose salary will be a little more petite this coming season. The Losers Ryo Kawashima - The first of quite a number of pitchers who will see their salary fall this [...]
Pitcher Masao Kida (no. 42) and outfielder Munehiro Shida (no. 0) were brought up to the first team before yesterday’s game. Kida, a veteran right-handed pitcher who has played in the majors for the Dodgers and Mariners, spent most of the season on the top team before being demoted a little over a week ago. [...]
August 20th, 2009 Hanshin Tigers 10 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 2 Streak: Lost 1 Last 5: LWLWL (Jingu Stadium) Well, I was wrong about who would be pitching today. I thought, and kind of hoped, that it would be Yuuki. Unfortunately, it was Ichiba. So it is probably necessary for me to think of [...]
August 12th, 2009 Yokohama BayStars 4 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3 Streak: Lost 1 Last 5: LLLWL (Jingu Stadium) Much like last week’s series, the birds opened this one with a win last night. Would they be able to make it two in a row? Just to make things interesting, Ichiba was in for his second [...]
August 5th, 2009 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3 Yokohama BayStars 8 Streak: Lost 1 Last 5: WWLWL (Yokohama Stadium) Ichiba made his first start for the Swallows in quite a while (partly due to some tinkering with this delivery–he’s now throwing from a 3/4 stance), and the result was interesting. I think he set a new [...]
May 12th, 2009 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3 Chunichi Dragons 6 Streak: Lost 1 Last 5: WWLWL (Nagaragawa Stadium) A pretty horrible three innings from starter Ichiba gave Tokyo a mountain to climb early on, and though they did their best to fight back they came up short on a rainy evening in Gifu. Yakult [...]
