An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
Chunichi Dragons Sold backup catcher, Keiji Oyama (31) to Tohoku. 2011 was Oyama’s best season so far, offensively-speaking. He hit .280/.394/.390 in 102 plate appearances. It sounds like Araki and Ibata could be reverting to their old positions, second and short, respectively. Victor Diaz is all but certain to be wearing a Chunichi uniform this [...]
Chunichi Dragons The talk of Araki and Ibata switching back to their original positions, 2nd and short, respectively, continues. Not that anyone cares. Victor Diaz might be on the team’s radar. Diaz played in Korea in 2009. Yomiuri Giants Hayato Sakamoto, Yomiuri’s prized homegrown shortstop, has been reaping the benefits of Shinya Miyamoto’s guidance this [...]
Yokohama has been bleeding talent like it’s their job. Uchikawa fled to Fukuoka after the 2010 season (and subsequently won a Japan Series Championship), and Murata departed for Yomiuri following another sixth place finish in 2011. DeNA now owns the team, so maybe rosier times are on the horizon. One possible plus is the fact [...]
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. [...]
Chunichi Dragons Mr. Takagi, the Dragons’ energetic and cuddly new manager, wants fans to touch his butt if they win the Central League Pennant in 2012. Yomiuri Giants In preparation for the upcoming season, Utsumi and several of his teammates went shopping in Guam. According to this report compiled by Yakyu Baka, Yomiuri will likely [...]
Happy New Year, everyone. Here’s another stab at a news roundup for our beloved Central League. Chunichi Dragons Under new management, the Dragons seem to be taking the whole ‘fan experience’ thing very seriously. Both the manager and the head of the team’s player group, starter Kazuki Yoshimi, have a bunch of ideas that range [...]
Happy holidays everyone! Hope that everyone out there has had a chance to spend some time with loved ones. This is the first of what will likely be an on-again, off-again column detailing what’s going on with Tokyo’s competition in the Central League. Chunichi Dragons Morimichi Takagi took over as Chunichi’s new coach following the [...]
October 15th, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 3 Yokohama BayStars 1 Streak: Won 1 Last 5: LLLLW (Yokohama Stadium) This one started out on a positive: Aoki, back at the top of the order, made Kuniyoshi serve up seven pitches all over the map before knocking one for a single. He then sat there until Hatakeyama doubled [...]
October 2nd, 2011 Tokyo Swallows 4 Yokohama BayStars 3 Streak: Won 1 Last 5: WWLLW (Yokohama Stadium) After watching its young pitchers get knocked about the park for the past two days, Tokyo looked to salvage a bit of pride against the recently very feisty BayStars. Tokyo opened the scoring on a solo Hatakeyama [...]
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 [...]
