The 28-year-old infielder (throws and bats right-handed) had several decent games at the minor league level to help get himself another shot at the first team.

His return comes at the expense of Yuuichi who was dropped from the 28-player, first team roster.

Here’s what the current Tokyo roster looks like as of August 7th, 2009:

Pitchers: Yoshinori, Lim, Muranaka, Ishikawa, Matsuoka, Tateyama, Yuuki, Hagiwara, Kida, Ichiba, Lee, Igarashi, Oshimoto

Catchers: Aikawa, Yoneno, Kawamoto

Infielders: Kawshima, D’Antona, Miyamoto, Tanaka, Hatakeyama, Kawabata, Noguchi

Outfielders: Fukuchi, Guiel, Takeuchi, Iihara, Aoki

Incidentally, it sounds like Miwa has been hitting up a storm on the farm team, so don’t be surprised if we see him appear on the first team before too long.

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 7

Yomiuri Giants 6

Streak: Won 1     Last 5: LWLDW

(Gifu)

Tokyo nearly let this one get away.

Masao Kida started this one for the Swallows (yes, you read that correctly) and he made it through five innings on only 48 pitches. He gave up only one hit and had one K against one walk. The orange guys were grounding out all over the place. Lots  of fly balls as well. Very solid pitching from Kida.

Barrett came in for inning number six and was also effective. He struck out the first two batters he faced, allowed a hit to center field, and then  ended the inning with a pop fly to short.

Oshimoto pitched the seventh and was able to sit down again after only eight pitches. No runners reached base.

Now by this time the score was already 7-0. The birds scored one run in each of the first three innings and then erupted for four in the top of the fifth.

But that was about it on offense for Tokyo. The Swallows managed nine hits in the first five frames, but only had Iihara’s ninth inning single to show for the final four. Fukuchi, Guiel and Tanaka all reached base twice while Iihara and Yuuichi got on base three times each. Fukukawa tallied three rbi’s, if you can believe that!

Yomiuri, when compared to Tokyo, had a mirror-opposite afternoon. They only managed two hits through the first seven innings, but then strung together five runs off of five hits in the eighth, and another one in the bottom of the ninth. Takai and Hashimoto were tagged with five runs and one run, respectively, and that gave Hagiwara a chance for a save.

Hagiwara retired all three batters he faced for the “S”, and Kida got the “W”.

Nishimura took the loss for Yomiuri.

Tokyo has five home games in a row starting tomorrow. They play the Lions at Jingu stadium tomorrow. The first pitched is scheduled for 1 PM.

SoftBank Hawks 2

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 7

Streak: Won 1     Last 5: WLLLW

(Meiji Jingu Stadium)

Tokyo finally got one back in the win column today. Yohsinori had a great day on the mound, and the Tokyo bats were a little bit more reliable than they had been over the past week.Boy Wonder pitched five full innings but didn’t surrender any runs. Softbank managed to get four hits off of him, but he struck out eight in the process. Yoshinori didn’t give up any walks although he did bean one guy (yeah, that must’ve hurt).

Yoshinori was followed by Igarashi who allowed both of Softbanks runs. Then Hashimoto came in to pitch the seventh and eighth innings while Matsuoka pitched a scoreless ninth.

Yoshinori picked up the win.

Yusuke Kajimoto (IF/OF), Hatakeyama, and Noguchi had two-hit games with Noguchi boasting a two-run dinger in the eigth. Yuuichi also had a home run in this contest.

Tokyo Yakult Swallows  5 

Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters  2

Streak: Won 1   Last 4: WWLW

(Sapporo Dome)

Three Tokyo players had two-hit games, and the pitching staff only gave up a pair of runs in Tokyo’s second half of a two-day stay up in Hokkaido. Impressively, more than 10,000 people turned out for the game despite being aired in direct competition with team Japan’s opening game of the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

Tokyo put the first run of the evening on the board on a solo home run by Keizo Kawashima in the third inning. Hokkaido left fielder, Sledge, drove in Hokkaido’s first run of the evening in the bottom of that inning to tie it up off of Tokyo starter, Yoshinori. Tokyo’s young fireballer pitched four innings and had five strikeouts against four walks.

Tokyo added another run in the fourth to go up 2-1, and Sledge had his second rbi, and the team’s final run, in the fifth. Satou, the eventual game-winner, was tagged with that run.

Tokyo took control of the game in the top of the sixth with a four hit, three run effort. Yuuichi started things off with a single to center and was followed by rbi singles care of Noguchi and Tanaka, plus a ground out to third by Fukukawa that resulted in a run crossing the plate.

No more runs scored after that. Kawashima, Miyamoto and Tanaka had two-hit each, and Hashimoto, Yamamoto and Matsuoka combined for four innings of scoreless relief. Matsuoka pitched the final two frames and picked up a save in the process.

Tokyo has tomorrow off which is good because we’re going to be at the Big Egg watching a WBC game between Taiwan and South Korea.

Tokyo Yakult Swallows  4 

Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters  5

Streak: Lost 1   Last 3: WWL

(Sapporo Dome)

The highlight of this game, from our perspective anyway, was Ishikawa. He started, threw only 41 pitches and retired all 12 batters he faced. Guiel provided the only offense of the game to that point with a solo home run in the top of the fourth. Tokyo went up 2-0 when

Miyamoto scored on a Noguchi triple.

Ishikawa was replaced by Yoshikawa at the beginning of the 5th, and things got ugly very quickly. Yoshikawa gave up three successive hits to start the inning, the third of which was a blast into the bleachers in left. Tokyo 2-3 Hokkaido.

Maruyama pitched the sixth for Tokyo and didn’t allow anyone to score in his second appearance of the pre-season. However, the home team added another run in the bottom of the seventh off of Tokyo’s Oshimoto which put them up by two runs.

Tokyo tied it up in the top of the 9th with a nice little two-out rally which was partly courtesy of an error by Hokkaido’s pitcher. With two men on, Yuuichi doubled to right which scored both Hatakeyama and Tanaka.

But with Takai on the mound for his first appearance of the year, it wasn’t meant to be. With two men on and two outs, Hokkaido’s center/left fielder, Morimoto, came through with a game winning double after killing rallies with weak hits in both the 5th and 7th innings.

Final score: Tokyo 4 – 5 Hokkaido

]]> http://tokyoswallows.com/2009/03/04/3409-hokkaido-away/feed/ 0 http://tokyoswallows.com/2009/03/01/3109-yokohama-home-away-from-home/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=3109-yokohama-home-away-from-home http://tokyoswallows.com/2009/03/01/3109-yokohama-home-away-from-home/#comments Sun, 01 Mar 2009 07:43:58 +0000 Christopher Pellegrini http://tokyoyakultswallows.wordpress.com/?p=1847 March 1st, 2009

Yokohama BayStars 3

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 4

Streak: Won 2 Last 5: WW
(Urasoe)

Tokyo won this game on a walk-off single to left care of infield utility man Yoshiyuki Noguchi (IF). Tokyo had gone into the top of the 9th nursing a one run advantage when Yokohama’s leftfielder, Onishi, homered to left off of new Tokyo southpaw, Ricky Barrett. Despite giving up the game-tying run, Barrett was credited with the win when Noguchi brought Iihara home on a game-winning single in the bottom of that inning.

Another Tokyo newcomer started the game. Hye-cheon Lee, formerly of the Doosan Bears, pitched three innings, and then he was followed by Ryo Kawashima who did the same. Tokyo’s third pitcher for the day was veteran Masao Kida who pitched two innings in middle relief.

Noguchi was definitely the highlight of the offense today. He went three for three with a triple, double and that game-winning single mentioned earlier. Kazuki Fukuchi and Yasuchi Iihara came through with two hits each.

In addition to Noguchi, Aaron Guiel (OF), Yuuichi Matsumoto (DH) and Kouhei Kawamoto (C) each had an rbi.

The Yokohama offense only had four hits, but they got a little help from a pair of Tokyo errors to help keep them in the game. Hitoshi Fujie took the loss for Yokohama.

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 6

Chunichi Dragons 3

Streak: Won 1 Last 5: W
(Chatan)

The NPB pre-season games kicked off today, and not a moment too soon for many of us! Tokyo’s first game of the pre-season schedule, which stretches until March 29th, was against the Chunichi Dragons.

As is often the case in pre-season games, a lot of players made an appearance today. With the bat, Aaron Guiel, Yasushi Iihara and Ryuji Miyade had multi-hit games. Iihara and Miyade both had three hits each while notching one and two rbi’s, respectively (Miyade had rbi singles in both the 2nd and 6th innings). Both Tsuyoshi Ueda and Yuuichi Matsumoto hit home runs.

On the mound, Shouhei Tateyama started and was credited with the win on two innings of work.

He was followed by Shun Takaichi who pitched four innings (three strikeouts). Chunichi scored one run in the sixth, but Takaichi was not tagged with that run.

Chang-yong Lim came on for the first two outs of the seventh, and Takashi Maruyama was brought on for the last out of that frame.

Takehiko Oshimoto gave up a two run homer during his 17-pitch eighth inning.

Kenichi Matsuoka pitched, and closed out, the ninth without allowing any more runs to score. He was credited with a save.

Bright spots for Chunichi included Fujii who had three singles and played all three positions in the outfield. Also, Nishikawa had a pinch hit two-run homer off of Oshimoto in the eighth. Chunichi starter, Kawai, gave up one run in five innings of work while taking the loss.

Tokyo’s next pre-season game is tomorrow versus Yokohama down on one of this archipelago’s warmer islands.