It’s Round 3 for the battle between one of Japan’s original franchises the (Hankyu to Orix to Orix-Kintetsu) Buffaloes and one of the 1950 young ones, the (Kokutetsu to Sankei to Yakult) Swallows.
In 1978, Yakult ended its franchise’s 27-year pennant drought and beat the Hankyu Braves in seven games for its first Japan Series championship, and in 1995, under Hall of Fame manager Katsuya Nomura, beat the Orix BlueWave in five.
Last year, I gave my odds on different series outcomes between the SoftBank Hawks and Yomiuri Giants, from what I thought the most likely with a 20.4 percent chance of occurring, a 4-2 Hawks win.
In that calculation, I estimated that based on historic interleague results, if we put the Pacific and Central league teams into one 12-team league, the PL teams would combine for a .530 winning percentage and the CL teams a .470.
The CL won this year’s interleague by one game, but the PL’s Pythagorean winning percentage (RS squared / (RS squared + RA squared) was, surprise, surprise .534, right about their historic figure, so I’m not buying any “the Central League is back” narratives just yet.
Let’s stick with the .530 figure for this year. Unlike 2020, when the Hawks dominated the PL, the Buffaloes had a .528 Pythagorean win percentage against the PL, a .653 against the CL. The Swallows were .585 against the CL, .552 against the PL.
When talking this out with John E. Gibson during the podcast, he said, “It’s not about the leagues,” which is true, but that’s the only way we can estimate the strengths of teams that play in different contexts.
Last year, I calculated that the Hawks had a 59 percent chance of beating the Giants in any single game. The Hawks swept, which I considered having a likelihood of 12.1 percent.
This one appears much, much closer, with my guess that the Buffaloes have a 51.1 percent chance of winning any one game, which is pretty darn near a flip of the coin.
A sweep is, I think, much less likely this year, and I’m giving Orix a 52 percent chance and change to extend the PL’s Japan Series win streak to a record-equalling ninth straight year.
| Series result | Estimated likelihood |
| Buffaloes in 6 | 16.3 percent |
| Buffaloes in 7 | 16.0 percent |
| Swallows in 7 | 15.3 percent |
| Swallows in 6 | 14.9 percent |
| Buffaloes in 5 | 13.4 percent |
| Swallows in 5 | 11.7 percent |
| Buffaloes in 4 | 06.8 percent |
| Swallows in 4 | 05.7 percent |
Nuts and bolts stuff
The interesting thing about this matchup is that the Swallows are the Central League’s most Pacific League-style team. Their pitchers will provide a good challenge to the Buffaloes’ hitters, but one they should be able to handle.
By PL-style, I mean throwing the first pitch inside the zone or on the edge of the zone most of the time. Getting ahead in counts allows pitchers to either expand the zone and attempt to get chase swings or pound the zone when the batter has to adjust to covering a wider area and expect more than just a fastball.
The problem is that the Swallows hitters don’t face PL-style pitching except in interleague. In their final playoff game, the Giants’ C.C. Mercedes dominated the zone, and they got behind, got flustered and chased a lot for six scoreless innings.
Swallows batters walk a lot, but against the Buffaloes they just can’t expect pitchers to nibble and fall behind in counts the way the majority of CL pitchers do.
As John pointed out, the Swallows bullpen is better. I believe the Buffaloes hitters will also adjust to being challenged in the zone early in the count better than the Swallows’ hitters will.
The Buffaloes are a better defensive team. That matters. In 2001, the Swallows beat the tar out of the Kintetsu Buffaloes, a much-better offensive club, simply because the Swallows that year were exceptionally good at making contact and the Buffaloes were the rare team to win a pennant despite not being able to catch the ball all that well.
The Swallows defense is competent, though. It’s not terrible.
It’s going to be fun.
