Hanshin Wins the Pennant
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Re: Hanshin Wins the Pennant
[ Author: mijow | Posted: Apr 30, 2002 12:44 PM
| HT Fan
]
After last night's win, the Tigers ensured they finish the month of April leading the CL. The last time they were in first place at the end of April was in 1985, and we all know what happened that year. It's also interesting to note that their second best finish in recent years was in 1992 when they came in second. And at the end of April that year they were... second.
I wonder how often the leader at the end of April goes through to win the pennant.
I wonder how often the leader at the end of April goes through to win the pennant.
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Yokohama
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Nippon Ham
Seibu
Kintetsu
Chunichi
Lotte
Orix
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Other than in stolen bases, the Giants bettered their Kansai rivals but still finished a distant second. Hoshino-kantoku commented that the hardest part of Hanshin's transformation is over and that "the look in (the players') eyes has changed."
One major change has been the adoption of a "never say die" attitude. The Tigers have won 9 of their 14 victories coming from behind. Contrast that to winning 21 gyaku-ten victories all last season and you can verify the attidude change. Yokohama's victorious 1998 season was filled with gyaku-ten victories, the "machine gun" offense coming through in the 7th, 8th, and/or 9th. So I value the ability to come back very high, personally.
A warning, though. Only three times in the past 20 years has the open-sen victor won the regular season pennant:
1984 Hankyu (now Orix)
1990 Seibu
1998 Seibu
Furthermore, what sticks in my mind the most, four times in the last 10 years winning open-sen has meant finishing dead last in the regular season:
1992 Lotte
1993 Hiroshima
1994 Yokohama
1995 Hanshin
It was almost considered a curse the first half of the 1990's.