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Race for history

The Seibu Lions’ Shogo Akiyama is challenging the record book this season.

“I’m enjoying it while it lasts.”

That was Seibu Lions center field Shogo Akiyama’s answer when reporters asked him two months ago about being on track to break Japan’s record for hits in a season. The record of 214 was set by Matt Murton of the Hanshin Tigers over 144 games in 2010, when he broke the 210 mark established by Ichiro Suzuki in 1994 in a 130-game season.

On July 2, Akiyama hit for the 23rd straight game, establishing a record for the storied franchise. Akiyama took another step toward putting his name in the record book with 43 hits in June, making him only the second player – after Suzuki to have back-to-back 40-hit months.

Because of the hits, Akiyama has grabbed headlines, but Softbank Hawks center fielder Yuki Yanagita, also a left-handed hitter, has held his own in the PL batting race with the two battling neck and neck. At the end of June, Yanagita was batting .381 to Akiyama’s .382. Because Yanagita bats third instead of first and walks much more often, it will be harder for the Hawks star to break the hit record.

Akiyama turned 27 on April 16, and although he began getting regular playing time in 2011, he was held back against left-handed pitchers his first year, when he posted a .403 OPS against southpaws. It’s an area where he has shown steady improvement, but this year Akiyama has taken a huge step forward against both lefties and righties with a .922/.962 left/right split.

Against the best pitchers in either league as measured by earned run average, the top 19 among pitchers with 74 or more innings pitched through July 4, Akiyama is 14-for-49 with four doubles, no homers, two walks and five strikeouts for a an OPS of .710 – impressive in that it is close to his career norm against all pitching.

However, against this same group of Japan’s best pitchers, Yanagita is 23-for-60, with six doubles, three homers and 10 walks against 12 strikeouts for an impressive OPS of 1.112 – impressive in that is as good as he is against everyone this season.

The Hawks’ Yuki Yanagita

Yanagita is six months younger than Akiyama and a rare type of hitter in Japan, a player who hits home runs, while frequently hitting the ball on the ground. If his past performance is any indication, he may be a better first-half hitter. If any of that was due to conditioning or fitness issues, then new Hawks manager Kimiyasu Kudo’s aggressive efforts in the area of fitnesss and conditioning may help that.

Akiyama has so far tended to get a little better as the season goes on, yet he is so far ahead of his past performance that it is hard to see him having a second half that is even as good. But even so, as of Sunday, July 5, Akiyama was 84 hits shy of Murton’s 214, and he had been collecting hits at an average of 1.65 per game. He can break the record even if that rate falls off by nearly 20 percent to 1.33 hits per game and he plays every game, so his fitness is going to be a huge issue.

Yanagita would have to improve his hit rate by 20 percent, which doesn’t seem likely. But if he were to hold steady – which seems possible, Yanagita would have a shot of breaking the single-season batting-average record of .389, set by Randy Bass in 1986.

Broken-bat home run sighting and today’s events in NPB

Francisco Caraballo, who won the triple crown last season in Japan’s independent Baseball Challenge League, showed off some awesome power on Friday night, when he broke his bat on a 1-2 pitch from former Pacific League MVP Mitsuo Yoshikawa — and knocked it over the fence at Osaka’s Kyocera Dome. If you can see the video above, take note of Yoshikawa’s priceless reaction. This stuff is not supposed to happen. The two-run shot didn’t change the outcome of the game, however, as the last-place Orix Buffaloes fell 8-3 at home to the Nippon Ham Fighters. Brandon Laird, who joined Nippon Ham this season, hit a two-run shot of his own, his fifth homer of the year.

Elsewhere in the PL, the league-leading Seibu Lions wiped out the Lotte Marines, winning on the road at QVC Marine Field in a game that saw former Atlanta Braves farmhand and 2014 PL home run leader Ernesto Mejia double in a run in a three-run first. The Lions’ DH, 19-year-old catching wannabe Tomoya Mori went 3-for-5 with his seventh home run and a pair of doubles.

In Fukuoka, former New York Mets reliever Ryota “formerly the pitcher known as ‘Rocket Boy” Igarashi did a little war dance when he escaped a two-on jam in the seventh for the Softbank Hawks in a 5-3 win over the Rakuten Eagles. Kazuo Matsui homered twice at Yafuoku Dome, which was made more home run friendly this season because Hawks ownership wanted the team to hit home runs the way they did when the balls were juiced. His second came off Hawks closer Dennis Sarfate, who hadn’t allowed a run until “Little” took him deep in the ninth.

In the Central League, the three-time champion Yomiuri Giants blew a four-run lead in a 6-5 loss in Yokohama to the surprising CL-leading DeNA BayStars in which rookie closer Yasuaki Yamasaki struck out the Giants in order in the ninth with his 146-kph fastball and a pitch he calls a two-seamer that looks for all intent and purposes like the nastiest splitter you’ve seen. It was his 13th save of the season.

阪神vs広島 2015/05/08 ダイジェスト

In Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, freshly called-up lefty Takaya Toda continued his impressive spring by allowing two runs in six innings after winning six of his first seven games for the Hiroshima Carp’s Western League farm club. Toda (1-0) got the win in the Carp’s 8-3 victory over the Hanshin Tigers at Koshien Stadium. Tigers starter Shintaro Fujinami (1-4) bore the brunt of his club’s awful defense. The Tigers went into the game allowing opponents who put the ball in play to reach safely at an NPB-worst .365 clip. In his five innings on the mound, there were 18 balls in play and Carp batters reached safely eight times. It didn’t help that