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The story
The Giants couldn’t close the gap with the Tigers, even in their head-to-head matchups, and the thread already had a resigned mood of just locking down 2nd place, with posts like “Might as well root for the Tigers too, just to keep 2nd safe.” Talk then shifted to comparing Japanese players’ home run totals over the years, with posters venting that — aside from Okamoto — Oshima and Sasaki’s 8 homers are the team’s best this season, and grumbling that the young players simply aren’t developing.
What people said
Giants Acting Manager 111
or sweeping every head-to-head matchup.
Even a manager like Kudo couldn't do it lol
And whose fault is it that the roster ended up like that?
to light up a reverse magic number of 2.
Back then they had an absolute run-producer like 'Ogarami' (fan nickname for a pair of sluggers), but there's nobody like that this year, so yeah… forget it ('mou muri' — net slang for 'no way, I give up').
Is some Tigers troll ('Chin-kasu') running this thread??????
For the Giants, if you limit it to Japanese players, Oshima and Sasaki's 8 homers are the best they've got.
Has a Giants season ever ended with every Japanese position player stuck under 10 homers before?
Apparently he's too busy with nightly drinking parties with his patrons (tanimachi) to make it.
Orix 3-0 SoftBank
Seibu 3-1 Rakuten
Lotte 3-2 Nippon-Ham
Hiroshima 3-2 Giants
Chunichi 3-2 Yakult
Still playing
Tigers 3-2 DeNA
Every winning team so far has scored exactly 3 runs
Jingu's actually got a good pitcher out there too, though…
2025: Richard 11, Kishida 8
2024: Maru 14, Sakamoto 7
2023: Sakamoto 22, Maru 18
2022: Maru 27, Nakata 24
2021: Maru 23, Sakamoto 19
The young players aren't developing at all
Nakata Sho really hit that many, huh…
This is clearly on the guy who went from farm-team manager, to first-team head coach, to first-team manager!
Kudo's the one pitching, so he won't be used.
No need to draft a single pitcher.
Watching him today, he's clearly got batting talent.
If he adds power, he could turn into a real slugger.
Without WACCHOI, people can sockpuppet all they want…
Sockpuppeting's not cool though…
Hard to believe he used to be a reliever himself.
Background and Key Points
The Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers are Nippon Professional Baseball’s oldest and fiercest rivalry, dating to the 1936 founding of Japan’s first pro league; head-to-head results between them carry outsized weight in the standings and in fan psychology all season. In NPB’s Central League, though, “settling for 2nd” isn’t a dead end the way it would be in a league with only one playoff spot — the top three finishers advance to the Climax Series, and 2nd- or 3rd-place teams have gone on to win the Japan Series before, so a runner-up finish still keeps a title alive, just through a harder bracket. The homer numbers posters cited (Maru and Sakamoto putting up 18-27 a year through 2021-23, versus Oshima and Sasaki’s 8 this year) track the erosion of the Giants’ Japanese-player power core now that Okamoto Kazuma is carrying the load essentially alone.
The thread’s real fault line wasn’t optimism versus pessimism — nearly everyone conceded the pennant is out of reach — but where to place blame: the front office, for not drafting a college or corporate-league power hitter since 2010, versus the coaching staff, for promoting a manager up through the farm system without him developing anyone once in the majors.
What outside readers may miss is that the one comeback precedent posters invoked, the Giants erasing a Tigers lead via a season-ending sweep, is a real and famous NPB moment — not idle nostalgia — which is why even resigned fans keep half-mentioning it.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and summaries of the 5ch (Hello!Project board) thread “Giants Acting Manager 112.”
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