Help! I'm a Month Behind

Wow. That's a lot of catching up to do. Where to start?

Well, it was June 15 (one month ago) when the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks moved their Magic Number to 2 for the inter-league season-in-a-season. They went on to win inter-league for a second year in a row. They've been swapping first place back and forth with the Fighters ever since.

The Hanshin Tigers settled into fifth place in the Central League standings to stay. Well, the BayStars have come within a stone toss to the Tigers, but can't seem to quite catch their tail - yet.

And speaking of the BayStars, they've been beating up on Yakult, and with the win in Hiroshima last night (July 14), they've won three in a row for the first time this season. It's been a tough year for the 'Stars.

Standing from the end of play on June 14 to July July 13 were as follows:

Central League:

1  Giants     34(6)18 .654  -    -->  1  46(7)24 .657  -
2  Yakult      32-22  .593  3GB  -->  2   41-31  .569  6GB
3  Chunichi   29(1)28 .509  7.5  -->  3  43(1)33 .566  6
4  Hiroshima  27(3)27 .500  8    -->  4  34(3)38 .472 13
5  Hanshin    22(3)31 .415 12.5  -->  5  29(4)41 .414 17
6  Yokohama    18-38  .321 18    -->  6   26-49  .347 22.5

Pacific League:

1  Nippon Ham  33(1)23 .589  -    -->  2  43(1)31 .581  1.5GB
2  SoftBank    32(2)24 .571  1GB  -->  1  44(2)29 .603  -
3  Seibu       29(3)26 .527  3.5  -->  3  39(3)36 .520  6
4  Rakuten      28-28  .500  5    -->  4   34-41  .453 11
5  Lotte       25(3)29 .463  7    -->  5  32(3)41 .438 12
6  Orix         21-36  .368 12.5  -->  6   29-46  .387 16

Rakuten suffered a long losing streak right after Nomura-kantoku's birthday (the first where his team was at or above .500 since dinosaurs ruled the Earth), erupting in a great deal of pessimistic boyaki from the always interesting manager.

A couple of batting records were broken, one by Lotte and the other by the Swallows.

Korean closer Lin, for Yakult, had a 0.00 ERA up until last weekend, right after the Swallows said that they were exercising their option for a third year to his contract. (This has a number of U.S. scouts upset, thinking that they were going to be able to whisk him away at the end of the season.)

Koshien's regional tournaments have gotten underway.

As always, you can go through the various forums (especially Pro Yakyu News headlines) and catch up. I was out at Matsuri all weekend and have fallen a few days behind myself, so I know how it feels.

Lim signed for security over a high reward high risk option, American scouts need to do their homework.