Today the Swallows returned to San Juan Capistrano Chiba Marine Stadium for the first time in 2009, and the first of the 4 interleague matches. Lotte returned home in winning fashion after the 2-game sweep at the hands of Hiroshima, beating Tokyo 6-3. I certainly love to watch a Lotte win but it’s always a …
Category: game report
Interleague Games 7 & 8: Zoom-Zoom Uh-Oh
As this series happened a few days back I’ll keep this brief. Lotte moved to Hiroshima after the Hanshin series for a 2-game set. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to either game as I would really have liked to have seen the lovely new Mazda Stadium. I was in Hiroshima a few weeks previously but …
Interleague Game 5 (ver B): Catch a Tiger by His Tail
You must indulge me a bit; I’m a bit miffed I missed this game due to Sunday’s weather. I’m going to recycle some unused pictures from Sunday’s game – the real date – for tonight’s game. I’m just pretending I was there. It would have been a good game to be in the stands for …
Interleague Game 6: Ouendan Tales
So the clouds decided to go away, the teams returned, and the second game of the Hanshin-Lotte series (though technically the first game) got underway. We made our way back to Koshien again for Monday’s game hoping to make it through 9 innings and get out with a Lotte victory. That we did, but the …
Interleague Game 5 (ver A): You saw nothing, you were never here
I’m more than a little late with this, but I have a good excuse, really! After Saturday’s second game vs Chunichi I hopped a Shinkansen down to Osaka for the Sunday-Monday series with the Hanshin Tigers in famous Koshien. We were not alone on our journey, either. On the platform at Tokyo station there were …
Interleague Game 4: Dragonslayers
Game 2 of the Chunichi-Lotte series kicked off at the unusual Saturday start time of 13:00 at a hot and sunny Chiba Marine Stadium. Up on the hill was Watanabe Shunsuke, who was looking for redemption after the I-won’t-admit-it-actually-happened 18-0 shellacking at the hands of Seibu, a game which he started and took the loss. …
Interleague Game 3: Dragooned
Interleague play continued as the Chunichi Dragons roared into town for the second interleague matchup. Unfortunately the fizzling offense from Wednesday’s game with Yokohama made another appearance as Chunichi took the first game 4-1. Much like Naruse’s start on Wednesday Lotte starter Ohmine didn’t pitch all that poorly, but there was no offensive help to …
Interleague Game 2: Bay Star Supernova
Forgive me if this sounds completely ridiculous – and believe me, I think it does, too – but despite giving up 3 HRs to the worst team in the Central League at home, Naruse Yoshihisa was really, really damn good in tonight’s 4-1 loss to Yokohama. How can that be? Let’s look at the way …
Interleague Game 1: Return of the Baby-Faced Killer
Yokohama cruised up the Shuto B today to visit Chiba Marine Stadium for the opening game of the 2009 Interleague season. Looking every bit like an escapee from one of the many school groups visiting tonight who jumped the fence, grabbed a uniform, and took the mound – 19-year old Karakawa Yuki mowed down batter …
Game Report: Seibu vs Lotte, 5/17
Lotte entered today’s game with Seibu needing a win to decidedly wipe the stink of Friday’s game off the weekend. With high winds in the area and rain threatening to interrupt the game the Marines put away the Lions 8-5 to take the series 2 games to 1. With this win Lotte has also won …