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The 2018 CL season’s probably going to be tight and close. The Swallows weren’t able to take the Jingu magic that swept the Giants and the Birds were instead swept by the Dragons in Nagoya. The team rebounded in Koshien and the team won its first road series since taking two of three games at the Tokyo Dome in May of last year.

Last Week’s Games (2W 4L, 8-7 Overall, 3rd in CL)

Tuesday April 10 vs. Chunichi Dragons at Nagoya Dome 3-6 Loss Hara pitched seven innings of solid baseball but was done in by one bad inning in the third. An inning in which he gave up a wild pitch strike out for a base, a walk and two singles for three runs. Outside of that bad inning Hara gave up just one hit and one walk as he pitched a complete game. Hara’s counterpart sophomore Yanagi pitched even better allowing just two singles and two walks in nine shutout innings. The game was done in a mere two hours and eighteen minutes. Yamada failed to reach base for the first time this season. He reached base on an error in the opening game, and via walks and hits in all subsequent games until this game. The Nagoya Dome crowd was announced as 21,201 people, although on the TV it seemed even sparser. It was the smallest crowd the Swallows played in front of this season.

Wednesday April 11 vs. Chunichi Dragons at Nagoya Dome 3-8 Loss David Huff was perfect through four innings before losing control and conceding seven runs on six hits in the fifth inning. The Swallows had batted in their first run of the series earlier in the inning on a series of singles with a bunt in between. The Swallows clawed back a few extra runs thanks to a fielding error but the bats didn’t produce an extra base hit for the second night in a row. Kazahari and Nakao both pitched scoreless innings before Takumi Numata debuted in the eighth. Numata gave up a run on a pair of doubles for an inauspicious first outing. Shingo Kawabata came in as a pinch hitter in the sixth and got an RBI on a groundout to short.

Thursday April 12 vs. Chunichi Dragons at Nagoya Dome 4-5 Loss Shingo Kawabata made his return to the starting lineup. He started at first and batted fifth. The battle of reconstructed elbows, Shohei Tateyama vs. Kazumi Yoshimi, went solidly in favor of the younger Yoshimi. Tateyama gave up three runs before recording a single out via a upper deck homer to Zoilo Almonte after letting Oshima and Kyoda get on. Tateyama gave up three more runs over his four innings of work. The last three runs were unearned but Tateyama’s botched pickoff throw in the third let a runner get to third from first. Kazahari pitched a clean fifth but got tagged with three runs. He left the game with the bases loaded having conceded two runs with just one out. Kondo poured salt into Kazahari’s line as he walked in a run before getting a line out double play. The Swallows scored a lone run in the fifth and got three runs off of Dragons’ mop-up pitcher Yu Sato who walked in two runs. Hajime Omura recorded his first career hit, an opposite field double in the ninth. The sweep put the Swallows back at .500 tied with the Dragons. The Swallows remained ahead of the Giants who got swept by the BayStars.

Friday April 13 vs. Hanshin Tigers at Koshien Stadium 3-2 Win The Swallows elected to rest Coco Balentien and Yuhei made his first appearance starting in left. Fujinami made the start on the mound for the Tigers and was largely effective in keeping the Swallows bats guessing. He allowed a single run on back-to-back-to-back singles to Kawabata, Nishiura, and Sakaguchi. Guchi’s single was a fake bunt attempt that opened a hole in the left side of the infield. The Swallows added a late run in the eighth when Yamada launched a solo shot off of Iwazaki. Yuhei, Aoki, and Kawabata followed with another run of singles but the inning ended when Yuhei was gunned down at home. David Buchanan pitched eight shutout innings of three hit ball and protected the narrow lead. He came out to go for the shutout in the ninth but a hard infield single by Rosario off of Buchanan’s glove followed by a Fukudome homer tied the game up. Carasiti came in to limit the damage and kept the game tied. The Swallows struck back in extras with a Yamada double, Yamasaki bunt, and Yuhei single brought home a textbook Japanese run off of Rafael Dolis. During Yamada’s tenth inning at bat he fouled a ball off of his shin. While he ran the bases and was the winning run. Okumura came out on defense in Yamada’s place in the bottom of the inning. The replacement ended Yamada’s streak of 181 games playing every inning.

Saturday April 14 vs. Hanshin Tigers at Koshien Stadium 6-0 Win The match up of Ishikawa and Akiyama was scoreless through the first five innings. Ishikawa escaped a bases loaded scare in the fourth but Akiyama looked a bit more polished than the veteran. However the Swallows bats managed to get the first run on a pair of doubles by Yamada and Coco sandwiching a Nishiura bunt. Ishikawa left the game with men in scoring position with one out in the sixth. Kondo came in and didn’t let his inherited runners score. Sakaguchi widened the gap with a solo shot to deep right in the top of the seventh inning off of Akiyama. Kyuji Fujikawa came in to face the Swallows in the eighth and gave up three runs. Coco got a two RBI double and a wild pitch put a runner in position for a Okumura sac fly. The Swallows manufactured one more run in the ninth as Nishiura cashed in a Sakaguchi lead off double. Akiyoshi, Ishiyama, and Carasiti all pitched a scoreless inning to preserve the shutout.

Sunday April 15 vs. Hanshin Tigers at Koshien Stadium 3-8 Loss Yoshinori made his second start of the season and didn’t look much better than in his first start. He lasted just four innings and gave up three runs including a two run homer to Itoi in the fourth. Nakao came for Yoshinori and pitched two innings and gave up another run. Yamanaka pitched the seventh and let the Tigers bats tee off on his slow ball to the tune of four runs. Kazahari was the lone Swallows pitcher to escape Koshien without giving up a run. The Swallows got one run off a Ugumori sac fly in the fifth, and two runs in the ninth off a Nakamura sac fly and a Hirooka RBI single. Hirooka came into the game as a pinch hitter for Yoshinori and went 2-for-3 with a run and an RBI. It was his first hits since his 5-for-5 game last week. Aoki got the day off and is one game away from 1000 career NPB games.



Roster Moves

Shingo Kawabata was re-added to the roster on Wednesday using the concussion exception. That meant Hajime Omura had to be removed but he did not have to wait the customary 10 days to be re-added.

Omura was re-added the next day in favor of Takumi Numata.

Yuhei was added back to the roster on Friday. Shohei Tateyama was sent down to make room.

Tsuyoshi Ueda was removed from the top team roster for the first time since 2016 to make room for Yoshinori.

Upcoming Games

The Swallows road trip continues tomorrow in Kure, Hiroshima to face the Carp before the two teams head to Hiroshima proper to finish out the three game series. The Swallows will take Friday off to travel back to Tokyo to face the BayStars in a weekend series. The Saturday game has already sold out.

Miscellaneous

Shingo Kawabata earned his international free agent rights on Saturday. Kawabata expressed zero interest in exercising his right although that might have to do with the fact that Kawabata signed a four year contract with the Swallows that has him tied to the team until the end of next season.