The Tokyo Yakult Swallows may have lost against the Hiroshima Carp on Sunday, but all in all it was still a good week to be a Swallows fan.
The team went 4-1-1 last week, and put a few more games between themselves and the Yomiuri Giants in the race to finish second in the Central League. Yakult, idle on Monday, has a 4½-game lead on Yomiuri.
The pennant may be out of reach — the Carp have a magic number of four, and the proverbial fat lady has been singing for weeks now — but a second-place finish is still extremely important. Finishing second means hosting the entire three-game CL Climax Series First Stage, where a tie game would also basically amount to a Yakult win.