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The story
The Hanshin Tigers have clinched the Central League pennant for a second straight year, the first back-to-back title in the club’s history. The same day, DeNA beat the Yomiuri Giants 5-2, a result that locked the Giants into a season-ending 2nd-place finish. Tigers fans kept up the Osaka tradition of diving into the Dotonbori River in celebration, with police on alert as the party spilled out into the streets. On 5ch, the mood was festive, but mixed in were complaints about the Central League’s overall decline in quality and hopes for an underdog upset in the Climax Series.
DeNA 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 1 0 |5
Giants 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 |2
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Source: nikkansports.com / Original article here
What people said
Not just a V — it's a VV!!
Not unless Hanshin loses four straight from here on.
The possibility's still alive.
The CS matters more, after all. Better to save him for that than bank on Hanshin losing four in a row.
Well, Hamaji shut it down, so it's fine.
Because he's been gassed and blowing saves lately.
What's that about washed-up ('owakon') soccer that can't even get people excited after losing to Korea again?
Tomorrow, after they lose?
Once they're back at Koshien, I'd guess.
Next, pin your hopes on them for the farm-team Japan Series instead.
Nah, the farm championship is strictly a second-string roster thing.
22:10 SUN
23:00 ABC
23:50 NHK
24:55 YTV
24:58 MBS
26:15 KTV
Guess I'll catch it on Sun TV.
People have said it a thousand times, but it's just wrong that Hanshin couldn't run away with a league this soft.
Even the clinch itself was anticlimactic — the Central League is honestly pathetic.
Way too many close games thrown away on errors…
Seriously, this.
That ending summed up this whole Central League season.
Yokohama's gonna wreck it all for you in the short series.
More importantly, with a 10-game lead they're about to get that 2-win advantage too.
https://n.picvr.net/2610032133312964.jpg
But I bet SoftBank takes the actual Japan Series.
The Japan Series these days is basically just an exhibition, like the All-Star Game.
It's more of a bonus on top of the league title — nice to have, but no big deal if you miss it.
The Japan Series? Never heard of it… (said in a trembling voice — a classic meme deadpan)
The Japan Series really is just a bonus.
More like a friendly scrimmage against the Pacific League.
At the end of the day, the league title is everything.
Don't just skip over the pennant win!
Tomorrow's Ohtani game matters more to them.
are there actually more baseball fans here?
Nobody cares about the ball-kicking around here.
The supporters are all middle-aged guys anyway.
At Koshien, there are way more kids in the stands.
Osaka's always been more into baseball than soccer.
High school baseball is strong here, but high school soccer is on the weaker side.
It's like Hanshin >>>>>>> Orix + Cerezo + Gamba + Vissel Kobe combined — that's the size of the gap we're talking about.
If they could actually pull off an upset, they wouldn't be everyone's favorite doormat.
It's not like it's pointless.
If only the pennant winner ever showed up, there'd be no reason to even run a CS.
Background and talking points
This marks Hanshin’s first-ever back-to-back Central League title, and the thread’s reaction shows just how much it means to fans old enough to remember the team’s long “dark age” of losing seasons. Diving into the Dotonbori River has been an Osaka tradition since the team’s 1985 Japan Series championship, and it’s now such a fixture that police deploy extra patrols for it every year. The Climax Series (CS) gives the league champion a win-advantage, and while several commenters in the thread wrote off the Japan Series as “just a bonus,” that’s not wrong in terms of the standings — though it’s worth noting the Japan Series still draws far more attention and bigger crowds in practice. Complaints about a decline in the Central League’s overall quality were common too, but no hard numbers backed it up — it came across more as an impression shaped by how many close games were lost to errors.
※ This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geisoku+) thread “[Baseball] Central League: Giants 2-5 DeNA [10/3] — Hanshin Tigers clinch first-ever Central League back-to-back title; DeNA locks in a winning record; Giants finish the season in 2nd place.”
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