Saturday, September 8, 2007

Hanshin Tigers Close In On Division Lead!



The Hanshin Tigers were overwhelmed in the longball department Friday in their faceoff with Yomiuri at Tokyo Dome 7-1, three of those by first baseman Seung-yeop Lee, but they got a ninth inning pinch hit leadoff jack from Shinjiro Hiyama to break an 8-8 deadlock and take it 9-8 and advance to within half a game of first. Tigers starter Ryan Vogelsong became the first hurler for that club to be tagged for five bombs since Masaki Fukuya in 1987 and the fifth Hanshin hurler overall in going 5.1 innings of six run, nine hit ball in a no decision.

Tomoyuki Kubota was roughed up for the other two Giants homers, but was still credited with the win, his sixth.

Jeremy Powell started for Yomiuri and went 4.1 innings of five run, six hit ball while also walking four, two of which showed up on the scoreboard, in a no decision. Powell was demoted to the minors after the game and this is probably it for him in Tokyo. Satoshi Fukuda was called up in his place.

The seven dingers is a 2007 best for the Giants and it was the ninth time in team annals that they had done that, the last time being in 2005. The only other time that they had lost while putting on that kind of fireworks display was on August 10th, 2000 against Yokohama. It is the third time that they have collected that many homers in a Tokyo Dome tilt since the park opened.

The most homers any one Yomiuri player has hit against Hanshin was 152, by Sadaharu Oh. Nobody else is even remotely close. Hiroshima, though, has been the team's favorite longball victim, taking Carp moundsmen deep 1662 times.


GANBARE MOUKO!

TomC

1 comment:

Yakyuu Shonen said...

The Tigers have now won again, putting them ahead in the league finally! But there's another game going on with the Giants right now, and they're tied 7-7 after eight innings. Whoever wins will be in the lead (but the Tigers would still lead in case of a tie). They've worked hard to take the lead, and there's no better time than at the end of the season to get there!