Tag Archives: Masataka Yoshida

NPB wrap 5-30-21

Interleague Day 6 – CL hanging in there

After six days of interleague play, the CL maintained its lead on Sunday, splitting the day’s three games to improve to 17-14-3 in the way one would expect the CL to be leading that is by doing better in close games since the CL are now being outscored 157-146.

In 2009, the one year the CL lead the PL in wins, CL clubs went 70-67 while being outscored 613-588. The CL has never scored more runs than the PL. The PL’s current run edge projects a Pythagorean win percentage of .536. The PL’s historic Pyathagorean win percentage prior to this year is .547.

Hawks’ streak goes up in Smoak

Giants 4, Hawks 3

At Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome, Kazuma Okamoto stayed tied for the CL home run lead with his 14th, breaking a 2-2 fifth-inning tie and marking the first time in the series the Giants had led after the second inning. Justin Smoak drove in Yomiuri’s other three runs, with a first-inning single and an eighth-inning homer, his sixth.

Tsuyoshi Wada (3-3) allowed runs in the first inning for the first time this season, but he after one good start he was back to struggling again, dangerous when he could locate vulnerable when he couldn’t. Shosei Togo (5-2) pitched out of a couple of jams, retiring Yuya Hasegawa and Wladimir Balentien, with the bases loaded in the fifth to preserve his one-run lead.

Probably the most notable thing about this game was how weak the umpiring was, in particular a strikeout call on a 3-2 pitch to Zelous Wheeler that wasn’t called and a tag out on the runner moving that wasn’t called and took a while to sort out.

Rubby De La Rosa faced one batter in the ninth with the tying and go-ahead runners on base, but struck out Takuya Kai looking to end the game and earn his seventh save.

The Giants’ win against the Hawks was their first since June 22, 2019.

Dragons 4, Fighters 1

At Sapporo Dome, Dayan Viciedo was the big wheel for Chunichi, doubling and scoring the opening run in the second off Nippon Ham’s Robbie Erlin (1-1) and homering, his seventh, in the fourth to make it 2-0. Koji Fukutani (3-4), the Dragon’s Opening Day starter, worked six innings, allowing a run on a walk and five hits while striking out seven.

Eagles 5, BayStars 1

At Sendai’s Rakuten Seimei Park, Rakuten rookie Takahisa Hayakawa and DeNA ace Shota Imanaga locked up in a 1-1 pitchers’ duel in an impressive start for both. Takero Okajima broke the tie in the seventh with a two-run triple, and the Eagles added on two more in the ninth against new import Kevin Shackelford.

Tigers 9, Lions 8

At MetLife Dome, Yoshio Itoi got a start for Hanshin and is if to remind the team that he’s still there, he maintained his record of homering in all his starts. He hit his third, while scoring three and driving in three, and Tigers catcher Ryutaro Umeno homered, his first, drove in three and scored two.

Marines 7, Carp 1

At Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium, new Hiroshima import Dovydas Neverauskas (0-1) had a rough baptism to Japanese ball, walking five as he allowed three runs over 2-2/3 innings, while lefty Kazuya Ojima (2-2) held the Carp to a run over six innings.

Buffaloes 8, Swallows 7

At Osaka‘s Kyocera Dome, Taichi Ishiyama (0-4), who had been pushed down from closing to setup duties, allowed three runners in the eighth, leaving with two on and a run and handing Masataka Yoshida off to Scott McGough, who surrendered a two-run double to Orix’s pocket battleship, who had three RBIs in the game. Yutaro Sugimoto hit a two-run homer in the first off Yakult’s Albert Suarez, his 12th.

Jose Osuna and Munetaka Murakami each drove in two runs for the Swallows, Murakami with his 14th home run. Hirotoshi Masui turned in a credible start for the Buffaloes, allowing two runs over five innings while striking out six, hitting one and giving up three hits.

Active roster moves 5/30/2021

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 6/9

Central League

Activated

TigersP41Shoki Murakami
CarpP99Dovydas Neverauskas

Dectivated

GiantsP92Shohei Numata
CarpP65Shogo Tamamura

Pacific League

Activated

EaglesIF24Fumiya Kurokawa
BuffaloesP16Yoshihisa Hirano
BuffaloesP17Hirotoshi Masui

Dectivated

EaglesIF9Brandon Dixon
BuffaloesP58Kazuyuki Kaneda

Monthly MVPs

Telling it like it is

As people say on Twitter, “I was today years old when I” learned that the player of the month awarded to Nippon Professional Baseball position players is not the “player of the month” but the “Player of the month Batter’s Award.”

For years, I suspected that along with things like walks, runs scored, fielding excellence was not one of the things evaluated for the award, and on the podcast always referred to it derisively as the “batter of the month award,” but never even noticed the heading on the NPB website until today. To be fair, since two years ago, when Nippon Seimei assigned the award’s sponsorship to its Taiju Life Insurance subsidiary, things like runs, and on base percentage have become part of the equation.

The irony is that this year’s first Central League “batter of the month” winner, Hiroshima Carp second baseman Ryosuke Kikuchi, won the award despite his defense, and it so much as says that.

Here’s an English translation of the npb.jp.blurb:

Ryosuke Kikuchi of the Hiroshima Carp wins the batter’s award for the third time and for the first time since August 2016.

Kikuchi led the league with a .352 average, 45 hits and 21 runs scored. He maintained a high batting average and sparked the team from the leadoff spot. He began the season with a 16-game hitting streak, and on April 16 propelled the Carp by leading off the game against the Chunichi Dragons at Vantelin Dome with a home run, the 100th of his career.

He displays extraordinary batting sense, and even though he is excessively touted as a fielding master craftsman, his batting has been reverberating since the start of the season.

So in other words, don’t let the fact that Kikuchi fields his position well disqualify him from consideration for the award.

In my off-the-cuff opinion, Kikuchi was as valuable as Yakult slugger Munetaka Murakami because of his defense, but Delta Graphs rates Kikuchi as the NPB offensive WAR leader with 2.3, to 2.2 for Murakami and Yomiuri’s Hayato Sakamoto, so there.

The CL pitcher’s award went to Yomiuri Giants lefty Yuki Takahashi, who went 5-0 and tied for third with a 1.80 ERA. The league leader, teammate Nobutaka Imamura (1.62) went 2-0 in five starts while striking out 10 more batters and walking 10 fewer, and getting two fewer runs per game scored behind him. Takahashi’s blurb credited him with five quality starts; while Imamura had four.

Delta Graphs, through May 11, had Chunichi’s Yuya Yanagi leading CL pitchers in WAR with 2.0, followed by Joe Gunkel, Imamura, Allen Kuri, Koyo Aoyagi, Tomoyuki Sugano, Daichi Osera, Carp rookie closer Ryoji Kuribayashi, and Takahashi at No. 8.

In the PL

The PL’s batter of the month went to Lotte Marines right fielder Leonys Martin, whom Delta Graphs now has at 2.0 WAR behind Seibu shortstop Sosuke Genda at 2.1.

Martin’s credited with, according to NPB, leading the league with 10 home runs, a .576 slugging average, a .458 batting average with runners in scoring position, and playing in every game through April 30. Hey being fit enough to do well day in and day out is important, but about 20 players did that.

Masataka Yoshida would have been another good choice, but no complaints here for a change.

The PL’s pitcher award went to Hideaki Wakui of the Rakuten Eagles, who tied for the lead in wins with four, and was second in both ERA and innings pitched.

The pitcher who led the league in both categories, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, of the Orix Buffaloes went 3-2 scoring with 2.68 runs per nine innings in his games compared to 4.93 in Wakui’s.