He was on the first team roster yesterday, but he didn’t make an appearance in the Swallows’ most recent collapse.

Lim’s record before being deactivated from the first team earlier this month was five wins and three losses with 25 saves and an ERA of 1.62.

Opposing teams are hitting a mere .196 against him so far this season, best on the team for anyone with more than 15 innings of work (Lim has put in 50), but he’s been considerably more hittable as of late.

Hopefully the rest did him some good.

Headed down (yet again) is pitcher Masao Kida. Kida’s record is 3-4 (with seven hold points), and his 5.55 ERA indicates that he’s too good for the farm league, but not steady enough for the top team.

Opposing batters are hitting a robust .304 against him which puts him up in the territory of Hagiwara, Ichiba, and Matsunaka (all above .300). Actually, as of yesterday, Matsuoka joined that clique, too.

Also reappearing on the parent team roster was pitcher Ryota Igarashi (no. 53). He was reactivated back on September 11th, and he pitched one solid inning in yesterday’s game versus Yokohama. He had been removed from the top team on August 29th after experiencing arm pain during that day’s game versus Chunichi.

He made one appearance at the farm level and struck out all three batters he faced (Sept. 10th versus Searex).

Igarashi’s numbers so far this season (including last night’s appearance) are two wins, two losses, two saves, and a team-leading 29 hold points. His ERA is 2.77 and opposing batters are hitting .206 against him.

Dropped to the farm team to take his place was relief pitcher Yuya Kamada who appears to be another one of those in-between players like Kida.

Here’s what the top team roster looked like as of game time yesterday:

Pitchers: Ishikawa, Lim, Matsuoka, Tateyama, Okamoto, Yuki, Matsui, Lee, Igarashi, Takagi, Yoshikawa, Oshimoto

Catchers: Kinugawa, Kawamoto, Aikawa

Infielders: Kawashima, Miyamoto, D’Antona, Tanaka, Yoshimoto, Hatakeyama, Noguchi, Morioka

Outfielders: Fukuchi, Guiel, Takeuchi, Iihara, Aoki

Hiroshima Toyo Carp 9

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 0

Streak: Lost 4     Last : DLLLL

(Jingu Stadium)

Two-word game report: shit sandwich.

Pertinent game facts:

Hits: Hiroshima 15, Tokyo 5

Hitless Tokyo innings: 6

Winning Pitcher: Colby Lewis 113 pitch complete game shutout with 9K, 0BB.

No. of pitchers to throw a complete game shutout of Tokyo this week: 2

Losing Pitcher: Masanori Ishikawa. 6 innings, 6 runs, 12 hits (2HR), 4K, 0BB , 1HBP. Record now at 10-7/3.63.

Tokyo players that managed to hit: Aoki (2), Fukuchi, D’Antona, Miyamoto.

Number of rookie pitchers to make their pro-debuts tonight: 1. Nineteen year old Katsuki Akagawa. 4 batters faced in the 9th inning. 3 hits (1HR), 3 runs, 2 wild pitches, 0 outs.

Other Relievers involved: Kamada (5.25) worked scoreless 7th and 8th innings. Yoshikawa (0.00) mopped the mess left by Akagawa in the 9th with three straight outs.

Any stained sheets/dodgy umpires calls involved tonight?: Nope. Only ourselves to blame for this one.

Distance to chasing pack: With Hanshin winning tonight they’re just 1.5 games back with Hiroshima a further game behind.

Any hope for some kind of change in fortunes?: Erm…………anyone know a good witchdoctor?

Consecutive series lost: 11

Next game: Tomorrow. With our only two consistently decent starters (Tateyama and Ishikawa) both losing in the first two games of this series, and the bullpen in disarray who knows who will take the mound for that game.

Things are looking: Bad. Real bad.

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 0

Yomiuri Giants 7

Streak: Lost 1   Last 5: LLWDL

(Tokyo Dome)

Oshimoto made his first start in four years as he attempted to help out the ailing Yakult rotation, and he did very well indeed, though his hard work was undone by the patched-up bullpen. He also got no run support as Utsumi became the latest pitcher to pitch a complete game shutout against the Swallows.

Today’s lineup saw two changes with D’Antona replacing Takeuchi at first and Ihara replacing Guiel in rightfield. The Guiel switch showed Takada’s continued reluctance to put the Canadian in against lefties, though his replacement Ihara did have an excellent .462 record against Utsumi this year coming into the game.

Oshimoto, making his first start since 2005, when he was with Nippon Ham, pitched and exellent five innings, giving up just the one run (a 2nd inning homerun from pig-faced freakboy Shinosuke Abe) off three hits, striking out two, walking two and hitting one.

He left the game in a good position for Tokyo, but it wouldn’t remain so rosey after the bullpen got involved. Matsui  (5.79) gave up three runs off four hits in the 6th and it was 4-0 Yomiuri. Though it has to be said that that inning just illustrated the vast difference in luck between the two teams, with the Giants getting on base via lucky infield hits, dribbling grounders that just escaped the diving infield and other such assorted crap. Even pitcher Utsumi got himself an RBI which just added to the general nauseating circle-jerk vibe that is a game at the Tokyo Dome.

Lee (3.41) came in for the 7th and had himself a 1,2,3 inning, before Kamada (6.30) pitched a three-hit three-run 8th and it was 7-0.

Utsumi ended up wrapping up his complete game shutout after giving up seven hits and striking out nine. He’d lost his last three starts before this (one of them coming against Tokyo) and I seem to remember him often re-discovering his form against us this year.

Tokyo had their first (and only) chance against him in the 1st, with Tanaka and Aoki singles putting men on the corners with one out for D’Antona. He hit a fierce linedrive which was caught by the diving Ogasawara at first, who also managed to tag out Aoki for the double play.

They wouldn’t get more than one man on again until the 9th, where two two-out singles from the pinch-hitting Hatakeyama and Ihara were a case of too little too late.

Aoki (.277), and Tanaka (.281) had two-hit games while Fukuchi (.276), D’Antona (.291), Keizo (.252) and Aikawa (.246) were all hitless.

Oshimoto was the unfortunate recipient of the loss as his record moved to 1-5/2.54.

The two teams will meet again at the same time and place tomorrow evening.

This is the second time in recent weeks that Kamada has been called up, the first time was detailed in this Roster Update. Kamada has a 4.50 in eight innings of work for the top team thus far, and he threw one scoreless inning last night.

Masubuchi is one of several young pitchers on the farm blessed with potential but battling injuries brought on by overuse (and baseballs to the face in this young man’s case). Masubuchi, a 21-year-old in his third year with the team, will hopefully begin making a contribution to the team within the next season or two.

In 10 appearances with the farm team this season, Masubuchi has a record of 3-1 and a 4.19 ERA. It could be argued that he is being elevated to the first team a bit too late in the season, but he does need top team starts, and several of them, before the end of the season.

Masubuchi had a very rough outing last night. He walked six batters, threw two wild pitches, and gave up seven earned runs in five innings. The only reason why he lasted five innings was because he was let out of a couple of jams by clutch double plays.

Headed down (again) are relief pitcher Jun Hagiwara and catcher Tomohito Yoneno.

Anyway, here’s what the top team looks like as of game-time yesterday:

Pitchers: Yoshinori, Lim, Tateyama, Ishikawa, Yuuki,  Matsui, Takagi, Lee, Yoshikawa, Oshimoto, Masubuchi, Kamada

Catchers: Aikawa, Kawamoto

Infielders: Kawashima, Miyamoto, Yoshimoto, Tanaka, Hatakeyama, Noguchi, D’Antona

Outfielders: Fukuchi, Guiel, Takeuchi, Iihara, Aoki, Yuichi

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 4

Hanshin Tigers 9

Streak: Lost 6    Last 5:  LLLLL

(Koshien)

Luckily for the surging Tigers, Takada plugged Masubuchi into the lineup for his first start of the year. One could probably argue that this was not the wisest time to do such a thing, but we’ll get to that later.

Tokyo’s starting lineup:

1. Fukuchi (LF)
2. Tanaka (2B)
3. Aoki (CF)
4. D’Antona (1B)
5. Iihara (RF)
6. Miyamoto (3B)
7. Kawashima (SS)
8. Aikawa (C)
9. Masubuchi (P)

Masubuchi’s start is best summed up by a quick look at the fifth inning. After getting Toritani to fly out to center, Masubuchi walked both Kanemoto and Arai. He got out number two on a strikeout of Brazell, but then the bases filled up on his third walk of the inning, this time a free base for Katsuragi. Hanshin’s catcher, Kanou, reached second on a drive to left that played around near the wall and allowed all three of the hitters that Masubuchi walked to score.

At that point it was 7-1 Hanshin, and that was it for Masubuchi who took the loss and has a robust 12.60 ERA to work on from here on out (if Takada doesn’t immediately send him back down to the farm, that is…a distinct possibility). His control was absolutely horrid as he walked six batters and threw two wild pitches for good measure. With eight hits mixed in there, that’s a RIP of 2.8! All seven of those runs mentioned earlier were earned.

Tokyo’s biggest inning came in the sixth when Tanaka scored from second on an Iihara double. Aoki moved over to third on the play. Miyamoto’s subsequent single to center scored both Aoki and Iihara to put the score at 7-4 Hanshin.

But that was as close as things would get as Toritani, who is getting his bat on everything lately, hit a two run homer off of Tokyo reliever Matsui to reveal a 9-4 scoreline.

Matsui went on to retire the next five batters he faced to push his ERA up to 4.50. Kamada (4.50) pitched the eighth and allowed one baserunner but got out of the inning unharmed.

The brightest spot on offense was Tanaka who had a three-hit game and crossed home plate twice. Iihara, playing in place of Guiel, had two hits and scored one run.

Otherwise, this was another game to forget.

TAKADA COUNT: 11

That’s for starting an untested and unproven pitcher in the most important series the team has come up against in the last six weeks.

The birds have now dropped six straight, and it is beginning to look like my prediction a few games back may ultimately prove to be a bit too kind. Tokyo may not recover from the current slump (now entering its fifth week) because the team is thinking and playing like it’s going to lose. There is little suggesting that Takada knows how to recreate a positive environment in the locker room, so we may be down to one final hope.

Everyone knows what I’m talking about here–the hope that Takada will not be given another contract to pilot this team.

And let’s be honest, the team is in zero danger of catching the Dragons even if they do miraculously hold on to third place in the Central League. That means that the first round of the playoffs would be played in Nagoya against a much deeper Dragons team that has infinite playoff experience over the last few years.

With that idea in mind, we should start viewing each one of the bevy of losses likely coming our way over the waning weeks of the 2009 campaign as an investment in the team’s future. If the team keeps losing, there’s an outside chance that we may get a fresh start next season.

Too bad top draft picks aren’t tied to dismal team performance in NPB.

Right-handed pitcher Kousuke Matsui (no. 44) turns 31 this month and is in his fourth year after being drafted out of JR East’s industrial league team.

He has played regularly at the farm level this season, but earned a call-up for the first time this season. He has made a few starts for the top team in the past (he pitched 64 innings in ’06), but his numbers on the farm team have been very modest so far. In his 26 appearances, he has one win, five losses, and three saves. Meanwhile, his ERA was a robust 6.63.

Matsui’s personal website can be found here.

Barrett (no. 18) had made a few first team appearances earlier in the season, but he was dropped after one too many big innings. During his most recent stay on the farm team the southpaw made 17 appearances had a very respectable 3-0 record with a 2.81 ERA.

Matsui and Barrett replace pitchers Takaichi and Kamada who were just brought up to the first team earlier this week.

Takaichi had a rather disastrous start against the Baystars on Thursday, and Kamada gave up home runs in both of the games he pitched this week.

Their brief spell on the top team was quite forgettable, but it’s a shame that they weren’t given more of a chance to work with the team’s talented pitching coach, Araki, for a little bit longer before being sent back down.

Here is a look at Tokyo’s top team roster as of August 14th, 2009:

Pitchers: Yoshinori, Lim, Muranaka, Ishikawa, Matsuoka, Yuuki, Hagiwara, Matsui, Barrett, Ichiba, Lee, Igarashi, Oshimoto

Catchers: Aikawa, Yoneno, Kawamoto

Infielders: Kawashima, Kajimoto, Miyamoto, Tanaka, Hatakeyama, Kawabata, Noguchi

Outfielders: Fukuchi, Guiel, Takeuchi, Iihara, Aoki

Yokohama BayStars 13

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 2

Streak: Lost 2  Last 5: LLWLL

(Jingu Stadium)

Wow. That was embarrassing.

Tokyo’s lineup:

1. Fukuchi (LF)
2. Tanaka (2B)
3. Aoki (CF)
4. Hatakeyama (1B)
5. Guiel (RF)
6. Miyamoto (3B)
7. Aikawa (C)
8. Kawashima (SS)
9. Takaichi (P)

A lot of things went wrong tonight. The first bad decision was made by whoever thought that Takaichi was ready to start a game on the first team. He wasn’t exactly effective when he was up on the first team earlier this year, hence his three month visit to the farm team for “readjustment”, and in 12 appearances in the minors his ERA is over four and a half. By my calculations, that works out to somewhere between a 6-7.00 ERA in the pros.

And to make room for him, Nakao was dropped. The poor kid was called up so that he could get precisely two at-bats in two very critical late-game situations, which it’s probably safe to say he wasn’t prepared for, and then sees his shot go up in smoke after only a week on the top team. Today’s game would have been the perfect opportunity for him to get some game time in. In short, what was the point of bringing him up to begin with?

Another thing that hurt was the fact that D’Antona’s injury is serious enough that he has been dropped as well (which essentially means that he’s on the DL). Could this mean that Barrett will get another shot at the top team?

Anyways, let me briefly describe the damage visited on us by the hot-hitting BayStars.

I think it’s easiest to sum up if we look at the pitchers that made appearances today:

Inning(s) – Pitcher – (ERA) – earned runs

1.1                Takaichi (9.64) 4
1.2 – 5          Hagiwara (4.71) 3
6                   Lee (4.13) 3
7                   Oshimoto (3.00)
8 – 9             Kamada (5.14) 3

[Note: 1.1 equals 1 and 1/3 innings]

There. I think that pretty well sums it up.

The BayStars pounded out 21 hits and looked like a club with a lot of depth today. Even guys with sub-.200 averages were hitting home runs (i.e. Yamazaki and his three run dinger in the ninth), and Yokohama’s starter, Miura, had himself a nice little RBI single in the second.

The Tokyo bats, on the other hand, were kept very, very quiet by Miura despite the two fielding errors committed by Yokohama.

In fact, the only time Tokyo was able to score in this contest was on plays connected to fielding errors. It was pretty weak all around.

Kawashima had a great day at the plate, going 3-4, and Aoki also contributed a pair of singles, but no other starter was able to get a clean hit off of Miura.

All in all, Tokyo was absolutely destroyed by the BayStars, and they lost yet another series against the sixth-place team.

Takada continues to treat these games as though they’re “friendlies” or something and he loves to try out players whom he has recently promoted. The major problem here, of course, is that we have not been able to beat the BayStars this season, so it doesn’t really matter what place in the standings they occupy. Wouldn’t it have been better to bring Takaichi in as a middle reliever after Muranaka started throwing meatballs?

The Swallows better figure something out quickly because they are now off to Nagoya to take on the in-form Dragons this weekend.

The way Tokyo is playing right now, this could definitely be ugly.

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 start since reappearing in the first team clubhouse last week.

The lineup featured the usual suspects. Aoki seems to be back in center field for good while also staying in the number three spot quite regularly.

Tokyo’s lineup:

1. Fukuchi (LF)
2. Tanaka (2B)
3. Aoki (CF)
4. D’Antona (1B)
5. Guiel (RF)
6. Miyamoto (3B)
7. Aikawa (C)
8. Kawashima (SS)
9. Ichiba (P)

Ichiba started well, actually, and he got through the first three innings without giving up a hit (although he walked two.)

The only thing of consequence to occur early on was D’Antona getting injured. He left the game after lunging to reach a throw to first and appeared to pull a muscle in his leg. Hopefully it’s nothing too serious.

The Baystars finally got to Ichiba in the fourth care of some good base-running and hitting. 2-0 Yokohama.

Kawashima came up with an RBI groundout in the fifth to get the score to 2-1, but the BayStars added another run in the top of the sixth when Ishikawa notched his second rbi of the evening. 3-1 BayStars. Hagiwara got the earned run on that one.

The birds pulled level in the seventh when Guiel’s leadoff single was followed by a Miyamoto home run (his fifth of the season.) 3-3.

The rally was cut short after Aikawa drew a walk (which only happens once in a very long while these days), and Kawashima bunted to move him over. As we’ve seen a lot lately, no runs scored after that.

Both teams got out of jail free a couple of time between the eighth and the 11th, but no more runs scored. Many, many more pitchers came to the mound for both teams.

Here’s who pitched for the Swallows:

Inning(s) – Pitcher – (ERA) – earned runs

1-5           Ichiba (7.01) 2
6               Hagiwara (4.41) 1
7               Lee (3.13)
8               Igarashi (2.70)
9               Lim (0.40)
10            Matsuoka (2.86)
11             Oshimoto (3.09)
12             Kamada (1.80) 1

Kamada, fresh off of his call-up to the first team yesterday, had the pleasure of facing Uchikawa in that fateful 12th. With two outs, Uchikawa launched one over the wall in left to put the BayStars up 4-3.

And unlike yesterday, the birds weren’t able to make a comeback. With one out and first and second occupied by Tanaka and Fukuchi, Aoki wasn’t able to replicate last night’s heroics and hit into a game-ending double play.

Tokyo’s offensive player of the game was definitely Miyamoto who went 3-5 with two RBIs and was a triple shy of hitting for the cycle.

Tanaka, Aoki, Noguchi, and Guiel had two hits each as well.

But Tokyo hit into three double plays tonight, and that never helps. All three of them were inning-enders for the birds, so that definitely hurt.

Kamada took the loss in his first appearance back on the first team.

Game three of this series is tomorrow night at 6 p.m.

See you tomorrow night for Muranaka’s (?) next attempt to stay in a game longer than five innings.

Kamada made three appearances and pitched a total of four innings without surrendering a run, but he was dropped to the farm team a couple of months ago.

The 30-year-old right-handed pitcher from Akita prefecture has several years of first team experience and has pitched as both a starter and middle reliever in the past.

His personal website can be found here.

Kida, on the other hand, has survived on the top team despite sporting a 5.74 ERA in his 25 appearances for the first team. He began the season as a starter but was quickly moved into the bullpen where he has spent most of 2009.

Hopefully Kamada can take some of the pressure off of our other middle relievers. We may be seeing Yuya in action very soon if Ichiba or Muranaka has another rocky start. However, there’s no guarantee that he’ll actually see playing time as evidenced by Yamamoto’s recent fruitless first-team sojourn.

Here’s what the current squad looks like as of August 11th, 2009:

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

Catchers: Aikawa, Yoneno, Kawamoto

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

Outfielders: Fukuchi, Guiel, Takeuchi, Iihara, Aoki, Nakao

Chiba Lotte Marines 5

Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3

Streak: Lost 3

(Home game: Jingu Stadium)

Chiba starter, Ono, got the win on only five innings of work and 68 pitches. Kamada took the loss, his second in 14 relief appearances, for the home team.

Nishioka hit a leadoff home run in the top of the first off Tokyo starter Muranaka, but the Swallows rallied in the bottom of the second to put two runs on the board and take the lead (Kawamoto two-run double to left).

Tokyo’s last run came on a solo home run care of right fielder Fukuchi in the 5th. Chiba scored one run in both the sixth and seventh inning to pull ahead for good.

Fukuchi, Aoki and Kawamoto had two hits each, and Kawamoto maintained his form in notching two rbi’s on a very, very wet evening at Jingu stadium.