We’ve had some beatings this week, but the Yakult Swallows had a full game’s worth of a hiding in one inning on Saturday, when Hiroshima beat the living Carp out of them. Yakult still leads the Central League by 6-1/2 games over DeNA, but we have a new leader in the Pacific League.
Masahiro Tanaka was on the mound trying to keep the Rakuten Eagles from falling behind the third-place, Orix Buffaloes, who sent Yoshinobu Yamamoto out in their big matchup with the SoftBank Hawks, so here’s a breakdown of his arsenal:
Yoshinobu Yamamoto arsenal
Here’s a breakdown of Yamamoto’s pitches with the average Runs Created with every pitch thrown, the rate of swings that miss bats, and the rate of taken pitches called strikes.
| Pitch | RC | Total | Miss rate | Called rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fastball | .0256 | 1,061 | .19 | .40 |
| Fork | .0117 | 720 | .39 | .24 |
| Curve | .0117 | 425 | .27 | .44 |
| Cutter | .0250 | 194 | .20 | .37 |
| Slider | .0942 | 69 | .27 | .14 |
| Shoot | .0218 | 12 | .40 | .14 |
Of pitches thrown at least 400 times by a single pitcher this season, Yamamoto’s forkball and curve are tied for ninth most valuable this season in Japan. His fastball ranks 68th out of 122.
Batters have missed his forkball 39 percent of the time, sixth best in Japan. The top two are Kodai Senga’s forkball (.56) and Roki Sasaki’s (.51). Yamamoto’s curve is ranked 26th and is tied for fourth among the pitches most looked at for called strikes.
Carp 15, Swallows 7: At Jingu Stadium, Hiroshima scored 12 runs in one inning for the first time since the 1984 CL champions beat down the Swallows, also at Jingu, that May.
Continue reading NPB news: Sept. 10, 2022
