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The story
In Central League action on August 29, the Hanshin Tigers cruised to a 4-1 win over the Yomiuri Giants, with starter Ohtake pitching six scoreless innings and timely hits from Sakamoto, Motoyama, and Oyama backing him up. The win extended Hanshin’s streak and lit their “magic number” to 23, while Giants starter Masahiro Tanaka took the loss after allowing three runs, extending Yomiuri’s own losing skid. On 5ch’s Geinosuposoku+ board, the thread split over the two clubs’ history of hit-by-pitches, opinions on manager Tomoyuki Fujikawa, and posts comparing the franchises’ business scale.
Giants 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 | 1
Tigers 0 0 0 2 1 0 1 0 X | 4
[Batteries]
Source: nikkansports.com / Original article here
What people said
No more of that, pal!
You hit him and now what, huh?!
At this rate, unless Morishita, Sato, and Murakami all head to MLB, the league's never gonna be balanced
The results already show Dalbec doesn't cut it against anyone but Hanshin
No telling if Garcia will ever break out, but he's basically free, so betting on Garcia is the smarter move
Any complaint just boomerangs right back and stabs him and his own team
Why's that? Hanshin hasn't taken out any Giants players though?
Sure, they broke Tsuchida's bone, but the Giants took out Muramatsu before that, and they're still the ones plunking the most batters, aren't they?
For reference, hit-by-pitches so far (not counting yesterday):
Giants: 54
Yakult: 50
DeNA: 40
Hiroshima: 39
Hanshin: 34
Chunichi: 33
Now that you put it that way, yeah, fair point
Might get boring if it were soccer
But in baseball, even first place vs. last place, you never know who wins a single game
In soccer terms it's like watching nothing but set pieces the whole time
And you still get goals, so of course it's fun
That's just how the world works
The Chunichi manager never apologized when Kakefu got his bone broken by a pitch either
And comparing a .100-hitting bench guy like Tsuchida to Mr. Tigers himself, Kakefu
There's just no comparison
Both manager Fujikawa and Kirishiki properly apologized to the Chunichi manager the very next game.
Don't go spreading lies.
Even with fewer of them, a single one can cause a serious injury
What's messed up is Fujikawa acting all high and mighty about 'we hardly hit anyone,' then smirking the moment his own guy plunks someone
Think about it — the Giants hit the most batters and Hanshin the fewest
You're the wild ones with no control
And Fujikawa does apologize, just not in public
Then I guess it's fine to hit a Giants batter every single game from now on
Minimum 9 hit-by-pitches per game against the Giants
So Yomiuri, who's below even that 'perpetual last place' Hanshin, has no reason to exist then, huh
Hey! The 'perpetual last place' days are long over, grandpa (lol)
The last time Hanshin finished last was back in the Kanemoto era, a decade ago
Want to get tickets, but the 22nd and 23rd at Jingu are already sold out
Maybe at Jingu, or the Yokohama series after that, or before that, the Koshien-Yokohama game around the 20th
Nah nah, the Giants are winning the pennant
Hanshin, good luck in the Climax Series
Nice copypasta.
🔴 The new ruling power, Hanshin, vs. the old ruling power, Giants
[Attendance] Hanshin >>> Giants
[X (Twitter) followers] Hanshin >>> Giants
[Ordinary income] Hankyu Hanshin Holdings (¥125 billion, up 12% YoY) >> Yomiuri Group (approx. ¥4.2 billion, down 60% YoY)
[Revenue] Hankyu Hanshin Holdings (approx. ¥1.2 trillion) >>> Yomiuri Group (approx. ¥258.8 billion)
[Post-retirement support for players] Hanshin >>>>> Giants
Games played, including predecessor clubs (1936-2025)
11,122 Hanshin
11,081 Yomiuri
11,073 Chunichi
11,070 Orix
10,895 Fukuoka SoftBank
10,349 Hokkaido Nippon-Ham
*9,900 Yokohama DeNA
*9,882 Saitama Seibu
*9,878 Tokyo Yakult
*9,858 Chiba Lotte
*9,841 Hiroshima Toyo
*2,890 Tohoku Rakuten
https://cdn.amebaowndme.com/madrid-prd/madrid-web/images/sites/1609754/84c241ad538c16c931a23ca7da075801_45237574775a1a6a9b68fb0bbf8dedd7.png
No Togo, no Iori. And the foreign guys who put up big numbers last year are gone too.
If Togo and Yamazaki hadn't gotten hurt, the Giants would probably be running away with the pennant right now
Having your two main starting pitchers both out hurt at once… isn't that just a sign the team's a mess?
'If only' talk is embarrassing
Background and Talking Points
Hanshin’s “magic number drops to 23” refers to a stat unique to Japanese baseball: the combined total of Hanshin wins and Giants losses still needed for Hanshin to clinch the pennant — the lower the number, the closer they are to the title. The thread’s main point of disagreement was the history of hit-by-pitches between the two teams: posters cited concrete figures showing the Giants have hit the most batters this season (54) and Hanshin the fewest (34), but whether either side’s hit-by-pitches were “intentional” remains speculation on the posters’ part. Some also brought up the old story of Masayuki Kakefu breaking a bone after being hit by a pitch, though the details rest on posters’ memories and aren’t independently verified. Likewise, the posts comparing Hankyu Hanshin Holdings and the Yomiuri Group by ordinary income and revenue cite no sources, so those figures haven’t been independently confirmed either.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinosuposoku+) thread “[Baseball] Central League T 4-1 G [8/29] Hanshin’s win streak lights magic number to 23, Ohtake 6 scoreless innings, timely hits from Sakamoto/Motoyama/Oyama, Giants lose again, Tanaka allows 3 runs.”
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