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Side-armer Aoyagi gives Tigers new look

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As John E. Gibson is fond of saying, NPB’s month-long interleague season from the end of May is a time for testing out new players against the other league, and such was the case for Koyo Aoyagi. After three interleague starts and one relief appearance the Hanshin Tigers side-armer was deemed ready for Central League opponents.

The right-hander, whose fastball was sitting at 141 kilometers per hour (87 mph) had some trouble locating, but good action on his two-seamer, his change and slider against the Yomiuri Giants on Thursday night at Tokyo Dome in a 6-0 Tigers victory.




The 22-year-old Aoyagi, the Tigers’ fifth pick out of Teikyo University last autumn, worked inside consistently and walked four hitters over seven innings, while striking out six.

“I was extremely nervous, but was able to relax after my teammates scored some early runs for me (two in the first),” Aoyagi said.

As has been the case this season, the win saw some productive at-bats by young Tigers hitters, in this case 23-year-olds Taiga Egoshi and Masahiro Nakatani.

In Thursday’s other CL game, DeNA BayStars outfielder Yoshitomo Tsutusgo became the first left-handed hitter in franchise history to reach 20 homers in three straight seasons, as he brought DeNA from behind with a three-run homer and an RBI single in a 5-3 win over the Yakult Swallows.




In the Pacific League, the league-leading Sho Iwasaki threw his first shutout in five years as the SoftBank Hawks spoiled the return of Orix Buffaloes ace Chihiro Kaneko, who surrendered home runs to Seiichi Uchikawa and Nobuhiro Matsuda at Kyocera Dome in Osaka. Iwasaki went 6-2 in 2011, when NPB forced all teams to use the same ball and chose a particularly dead one. When the ball was livened up in 2013, Iwasaki’s ERA floated up to the point where he became barely usable.

Except for a one-out single and a walk before Uchikawa came to the plate in the first, Kaneko was solid for Orix, allowing three hits and a walk, while striking out seven over seven innings.

In the other PL game, the Lotte Marines beat the Seibu Lions 4-3, getting their second straight solid effort from right-hander Yuki Karakawa.




Commentary, Paid Content

Tough night for Kuroda, Tateyama

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Wednesday night was supposed to be a crowning achievement for Hiroki Kuroda, his 200th career win in top-flight pro ball. But the Chunichi Dragons were not having any of it in their home game in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture.

“We didn’t want to be the ones he beat for his 200th win, so to Mr. Kuroda I want to say, ‘Please get it next week,'” Dragons captain Ryosuke Hirata said on the postgame hero podium after a 4-1 victory over the Central League-leading Carp.




Kuroda, who fell to 6-4 as he failed to win his third straight decision, allowed three runs, two earned, in six innings. He didn’t walk a batter but did strike out two.

“The bottom line is that when I left pitches up in the zone, they put good swings on them,” Kuroda said according to Kyodo News.

Until Kuroda reaches the milestone, Hideo Nomo remains the only Japanese pitcher to work in the majors and reach 200 wins.
“As a ballplayer, I’m not catching up with Mr. Nomo, but I might feel so if I look only at that number. To have come even a little closer to a great pitcher, then it makes me happy to have played baseball.”

On the same night, another veteran was also denied a place in the spotlight. The Yakult Swallows’ Shohei Tateyama, who returned to the mound last year after his third Tommy John surgery, started this season 0-2 before having his right elbow cleaned out with an arthroscope in April. He returned to the mound earlier than expected and was in line for his first win — until a 3-2 pitch to Elian Herrera was rocketed over the wall in Yokohama Stadium in the eighth inning.

The grand slam was Herrera’s first homer in Japan. Closer Yasuaki Yamasaki surrendered two runs in the ninth, but the DeNA BayStars held on for an 8-7 win over last year’s CL champions.