Fifty fifty again - June 4th and 5th

There was a sense of deja vu in the first game at Rakuten. A Tigers pitcher blew a comfortable lead as before. The previous incident had seen Tigers 5-3 (or 5-2) up with Kubota on the mound. He threw to first in an attempted pick off and missed. It was a big error and he went to pieces with Golden Eagles running out 6-5 winners. This game saw Tigers 3-0 up with Messenger pitching well and Rakuten with only one hit after seven. Messenger though was nearing his limit and you knew what was going to happen - Wada was going to push Messenger into the eighth and then ninth in pursuit of a complete game. Messenger didn't have the stamina and was immediately in trouble in the ninth. He was pulled and replaced after Rakuten had taken two runs. Oh was brought on and he couldn't do anything to halt the home side's momentum - final score 4-3. When will Wada stop this stupid obsession with complete games? Tigers did bounce back completely annihilating Golden Eagles in the second game. Rakuten took the lead and then Tigers batting took apart first Kawai and then Uezono to take a seven run lead. Tigers added two more with a Toritani home run to make the final score 9-1. Interestingly Takahiro Arai was third base for this game and had a good outing. The victory went to Fujinami who was once again over pitched by Wada.

the inconsistency is maddening. getting swept by seibu (though most of central seems to be having inexplicable trouble with seibu), throwing winnable games away, playing poorly against weak teams, and then crushing good teams. that said, to me it looks the same for a lot of central. am i missing something, or is it really all over the map?

im wandering north to see one of the seibu games next weekend. despite my enthusiasm, at this point i sort of expect hanshin to find a way to lose against them

Yeah, strange year in the CL, so despite all our inconsistency, we're quite lucky to be in a good position, just 1.5 games out. Despite being 11th in the interleague rankings, we've still made up ground on the Carp, who are 12th. The Giants aren't playing as well as they should either this year and the Carp have come crashing down to earth in a very bad way, being outscored 50-13 in a current 5-game losing streak. So, if we can just be more consistent we have a chance.