Tag Archives: Hayato Sakamoto

NPB news: April 2, 2025

Nobody’s perfect in Japanese pro baseball, not the Lotte Marines dropped their home opener Wednesday following their weekend sweep of the SoftBank Hawks, and not the Yomiuri Giants’ Hayato Sakamoto. Perhaps the greatest shortstop Japan has produced, Sakamoto, we learned Wednesday from reports, has been caught in a rundown with tax officials over some of his deduction claims.

Wednesday’s games

Buffaloes 3, Marines 2: At Chiba Marine Stadium, Masahiro Nishino made up for a costly error with a tie-breaking two-run homer after the two starters, Orix’s Ryuhei Sotani and Lotte’s Yuji Nishino pitched six entertaining innings apiece. The Marines opened the scoring in the third on a one-out walk, Nishino’s throwing error and a beautiful safety squeeze from Akito Takabe. Kotaro Kuribayashi’s two-out RBI infield single tied it in the fourth.

Nishino homered in the top of the seventh, Neftali Soto singled in a run in the home half, when Orix reliever Seiryu Kotajima left the bases loaded. Andres Machado allowed a leadoff single in the ninth but struck out Soto to end it.

Continue reading NPB news: April 2, 2025

NPB news: May 18, 2023

We had five games on Thursday as two teams completed three-game sweeps that were unusual in one way or another, while one team kind of swept–a tie followed by two wins, and two bounced back from Game 1 losses to take two out of three, including the Fighters in their red-and-black Tsuyoshi Shinjo uniforms.

I’ve also got some thoughts on Chunichi Dragons manager Kazuyoshi’s attempt to model his managing style on that of his mentor, the late great Senichi Hoshino, and why it ain’t working.

Thursday’s games

Tigers 4, Dragons 1: At Nagoya Dome, where the Hanshin Tigers have a long history of surprising futility, Hanshin swept a road series against Chunichi for the first time in six years, and equaled their 1985 Japan Series championship team by being 10 games over .500 37 games into the season.

New import Johan Mieses crashed Dragons starter Yuya Yanagi‘s party early with a two-out three-run first-inning double. Koji Chikamoto, who sparked the three-run first with a leadoff single, doubled in Seiya Kinami in the second, and lefty Masashi Ito (2-0) didn’t allow a run until the sixth inning.

Dragons-Tigers highlights
Continue reading NPB news: May 18, 2023