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The story
In Central League play on September 20, the Yomiuri Giants edged the Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3-2 for their third consecutive win, moving into a share of first place. Tied going into the 6th, they retook the lead that inning and tacked on an insurance run in the 7th to close it out. While many thread posts praised the team’s strength, a questionable call in the top of the 7th set off a wave of “Jampire” jokes (slang blending “Giants” and “umpire,” implying the umps favor the team) along with complaints about the officiating. Posts also speculated on the fate of Hanshin’s magic number and how the contenders might stack up in the Japan Series, giving the thread the charged feel of a tightening pennant race.
Yakult 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 |2
Giants 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 X |3
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Source: nikkansports.com / Original article here
What people said
Giants win again today — hey~ quit copying~ (o^∀^o)
Nope — the 'reverse magic number' keeps ticking down
Still showing they've got plenty left in the tank this late in the season
Hey, quit copying!
Called dead-center pitches balls over and over in the 7th
Yokohama's (DeNA) comeback pennant win is a lock
a pitch that was clearly low got the strike call
'Jampire' exploding all over again today
Are you seriously happy winning it on bad umpiring?
That's like a shoplifter savoring the stolen food going 'mmm, delicious'
Morishita already told you — if you self-judge it, it's a strike, remember?
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/e8544b2b9231fb104d9b0d49375d8f297bbd44fc
Pitchers of record
Winning pitcher: Giants — Nakagawa (3-1, 0 SV)
Losing pitcher: Yakult — Sakaguchi (0-1, 0 SV)
Save: Giants — Martinez (5-4, 40 SV)
In American football they grope all the way down to the groin, so it's probably testosterone doing that
Truly a 'Make Arrest' kind of year (riff on 'make a miracle')
Called dead-center pitches balls over and over in the bottom of the 7th
Turns out that Bay Stars series the other day was just DeNA being on an absurd hot streak
DeNA is the strongest team in the Central League right now
Compared to Hanshin, the Giants are in way better form this late in the year
Whether it's Hanshin or the Giants, they'll probably get swept in the Japan Series either way
Honestly, DeNA's the only team with any real shot against SoftBank
once they get rolling they can ride the wave all the way — they've got the track record to prove it
But with DeNA, who really knows
(the one where Makihara gave up the hit to Brohard)
Ha, 'Furo Hard' [bath hard] — that pun on Brohard's name brings back memories
really battled out there
honestly thought the Giants were going to lose
No way they're beating them
The players have really come together as one
Maybe the players are only 'united' because someone dangled a carrot like 'we'll only make Hashigami the full-time manager next season if you win the pennant,' lol
If it's really 'Hashigami stays if we win, Abe comes back if we don't,' the players would get seriously desperate, lol
Whoever ends up facing the Hawks, it's just gonna be a letdown
Isn't that just on the manager, going all-out only against the Giants but not winning much against anyone else, lol
Hashigami's strategy is to not force it in the tough Hanshin matchups and instead rack up more wins everywhere else
Background and Talking Points
This game unfolds against the backdrop of a tight late-season pennant race involving the Giants, Hanshin, and DeNA. The “magic number” is the figure showing how many more wins (or opponent losses) a team needs to clinch the pennant; the “reverse magic number” mentioned in the thread is slang for the flip side — the point at which a team loses any chance of winning it outright on its own. The word “Jampire,” thrown around over the call in the top of the 7th, is a standard 5ch jab implying that close calls tend to break the Giants’ way — worth noting this isn’t a one-off for this game, but an expression that gets trotted out almost every year. Within the thread, comments praising the team’s strength appeared right alongside complaints about the officiating; rather than the reactions splitting along one axis, it’s notable that “satisfaction with how the win was earned” and “distrust in the umpiring” were being discussed as two separate threads. A few posts also touched on the manager’s status and past misconduct, but since the thread alone doesn’t give enough detail to confirm the full story, those points shouldn’t be taken as established fact.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Baseball] Central League: G 3-2 S [9/20] — Giants win 3rd straight, Yoshikawa’s go-ahead RBI double, Yakult drop another”.
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