All posts by Jim Allen

sports editor for a wire service in Tokyo

NPB news: Aug. 1, 2023

Japan’s baseball week got off to a banging start with a matchup between two starting pitchers coming off shutouts, a two-time Sawamura Award winner against a rookie with one game under his belt, and a two-time Sawamura Award winner coming off a tough loss. Ready?

Tuesday’s games

Swallows 1, Giants 0: At Tokyo Ugly Dome, lefty Taichi Yamano (1-0), Yakult’s second-round signing from the 2020 draft, worked seven scoreless innings in his first major league game since his abbreviated 2021 debut, striking out two, walking one over seven scoreless innings. Tomoyuki Sugano was almost as good, allowing one run over eight innings on six hits and a walk. When Yamano was done, Noboru Shimizu and Kazuto Taguchi each retired three straight. Taguchi, who was traded from Yomiuri to Yakult for a year’s supply of resin bags in 2021, notched his CL-leading 25th save.

“He changed speeds and at times was able to work low in the zone and get a basketful of ground balls,” manager Shingo Takatsu said. “He far exceeded my expectations.”

The hero interview, too, exceeded Yamano’s expectations. He was probably only prepared to take the winning ball from his pocket when instructed and say “My parents” when asked who he would give it to.

Instead, he got questions about his game and what went right, and the poor guy was a deer in the headlights. The hardest part was when asked about his tough struggles.

A second-round pick in 2020, Yamano allowed seven runs in 1-1/3 innings in his major league debut, and pitched in just one Eastern League game that season. After pitching in just six games in 2021, he was released and re-signed to a non-roster developmental contract. This year, the 24-year has a 1.75 ERA in 51-1/3 innings but has walked 21 batters while striking out 19. He was re-signed to a standard contract in July.

“You had some tough days?” he was asked, and began to wipe tears from his face before saying. “There were stretches of days where I didn’t want to play baseball anymore.”

Continue reading NPB news: Aug. 1, 2023

He’s back

A disclaimer is necessary. I write about Japanese baseball in general and pro baseball in particular, but the team that still attracts more of my attention than the others, at least when they are good, is the Yakult Swallows. 

The fall

After hitting his 55th home run last season, Munetaka Murakami had been in a funk, a funk that carried through the World Baseball Classic and into the 2023 regular season. 

Sometime between then and the start of this season, I said on the Japan Baseball Weekly Podcast that I expected Murakami at the age of 24 to be a better player than he was in 2022 at the age of 22.

This was met with some skepticism, since it seemed unlikely Murakami could surpass that historic age-21 season so quickly. I wasn’t talking about his numbers, however, but saying the sum total of his abilities on a ball field would likely be greater this year, that he could take a step forward as a player even if his offensive numbers didn’t come close to matching his magical 2022.

Continue reading He’s back