In this week’s podcast, John E. Gibson suggested it will be a hard slog for Yakult Swallows, whom my simplistic projection predicts will win the Central League pennant, to do that.
His thought was that since the Swallows play 11 of their final 21 games against the league’s second- and third-toughest teams, the Tigers and Giants, it will be harder than it looks.
The Yakult Swallows left a mark on the Chunichi Dragons largely in part to yet another effective start from 41-year-old low-velocity lefty Masanori Ishikawa and seven RBIs from Tetsuto Yamada, but it didn’t help them gain ground in the CL pennant race after the Hanshin Tigers held off the third-place Giants thanks to a three-run double from 41-year-old Yoshio Itoi.
