Tag Archives: Shintaro Fujinami

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NPB wrap 4-2-21

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Wakui solid again

At Sendai’s Rakuten Seimei Park, Hideaki Wakui (2-0) struck out nine without a walk as he allowed two runs over seven innings in the Rakuten Eagles’ 4-2 win over the Orix Buffaloes on Friday.

Sachiya Yamasaki (0-1), the fourth left-handed starter the Eagles have faced in seven games, allowed two runs over five innings to take the loss in his season debut. He struck out seven.

Daichi Suzuki singled in a run in the Eagles’ two-run first, and doubled and scored in the sixth.

Wakui took a three-run lead into the seventh but gave up back-to-back doubles to Masataka Yoshida and Steven Moya and a pinch-hit RBI single to Adam Jones. Eagles leadoff hitter Kazuki Tanaka led off the first with a single and scored, and then scored an insurance run in the bottom of the seventh after leading off with a walk off Tyler Higgins.

Right-hander Tomohito Sakai worked around a pair of two-out walks in the eighth, and closer Yuki Matsui worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his second save.

For the second straight week, Wakui established his fastball early and then mauled batters with his slider, sinker and curve, although he did use the heater more this time around as the game progressed.

At Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome, Kona Takahashi (2-0) was sharp for the Seibu Lions, striking out eight over eight innings, while Shuta Ishikawa (1-1) had an uncharacteristic start for the SoftBank Hawks in their 6-2 loss.

Ishikawa tends to have so much movement on his pitches that he walks three or four batters a start but rarely gives up a lot of hits. But this time out, when he walked two and hit one, the Lions teed off on straight pitches in the zone, scoring six runs on nine hits, the biggest a three-run Takeya Nakamura homer.

At Sapporo Dome, the PL needs to start thinking about a delay of game penalty to keep the Nippon Ham Fighters from taking at least 3-1/2 hours to play every one of their games.

That’s how long this one took as the Lotte Marines hammered former high school baseball star Kosei Yoshida (0-1) for seven runs over two innings.

Hisanori Yoshida homered, doubled and drove in four runs, while Shogo Nakamura had four hits, scored two and drove in three, while Leonys Martin walked twice, homered and scored three runs.

Kota Futaki (1-1), Lotte’s Opening Day starter, scattered four walks and two hits over seven innings.

Carp run over winless BayStars

At Yokohama Stadium, Daichi Osera (1-0) struck out seven over seven innings, and Ryuichi Matsuyama drove in three runs as the Hiroshima Carp continued the DeNA BayStars’ winless streak with a 4-0 victory in the Central League.

Haruhiro Hamaguchi (0-1) allowed two runs over six innings to take the loss.

At Tokyo Dome, Yasuhiro Ogawa (1-0) worked 7-2/3 innings and Munetaka Murakami hit his third home run, a two-run shot off Ryoma Nogami (0-1) in the Yakult Swallows’ 2-0 win over the Yomiuri Giants.

Zelous Wheeler hit two balls to the wall, one went for a double, and the other a single after he over-slid second base and was tagged out.

Swallows reliever Scott McGough retired the top of the Giants’ order 1-2-3 in the ninth to earn his first save.

Giants-Swallows highlights

At Koshien Stadium, the Hanshin Tigers’ bullpen wasted a good start from enigmatic right-hander Shintaro Fujinami in a 6-3 loss to the Chunichi Dragons.

Fujinami allowed a run on seven hits and two walks while striking out six, but new Tiger Ren Kajiya allowed three runners to reach with out in the eighth. Dragons catcher Takuya Kinoshita drove him from the mound with a two-run double and scored on a Yohei Oshima single.

Kinoshita doubled in two more in the ninth to ice it for the visitors.

Minor goings on

Sasaki pitches

Hard-throwing Lotte Marines teenager Roki Sasaki pitched in his first official pro game on Friday, allowing an infield single and a stolen base in two scoreless innings in an Eastern League game against the Yakult Swallows, Nikkan Sports reported.

The 19-year-old, who was clocked at 163 kph (101.3 mph) in a national team training camp in 2019, touched 153 kph (95.1) in the game at the Swallows’ minor league park in Toda, Saitama Prefecture.

Swallows suck it up

The Swallows have been forced to improvise in the wake of a number of staff members and No. 2 catcher Akihisa Nishida testing positive for the coronavirus. The subsequent deactivation of players considered to have had close contact with those testing positive has forced the Swallows to cancel Saturday’s and Sunday’s Eastern League games with the Marines.

On Thursday, thanks to the heads up from Deanna Rubin @marinerds, we learned that the short-handed minor league squad was forced to skip the DH at the Nippon Ham Fighters’ park and used a pitcher as a substitute outfielder.

Tigers Girls put on hold

The Hanshin Tigers’ cheerleading squad, the Tigers Girls, not to be confused with the organization’s amateur baseball club, the Tigers Women, will not appear in games at Koshien Stadium for the time being after more than one of the club’s cheerleaders tested positive for the coronavirus, Daily Sports reported.

Starting pitchers

Taguchi gets 1st shot at old team

So Taguchi, traded from the Yomiuri Giants to the CL rival Yakult Swallows in March, will get his first crack at his old team on Saturday when the Giants host the Swallows at Tokyo Dome.

The lefty got hammered in his first outing against the Tigers last weekend, giving up six runs in 2-1/3 innings.

Pacific League

Fighters vs Marines: Sapporo Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Naoyuki Uwasawa (0-1, 11.57) vs Manabu Mima (0-0, 1.50)

Eagles vs Buffaloes: Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Hayato Yuge (-) vs Taisuke Yamaoka (0-1, 6.00)

Hawks vs Lions: PayPay Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Rei Takahashi (0-0, 2.84) vs Shota Hamaya (0-1, 5.79)

Central League

Giants vs Swallows: Tokyo Dome 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Shosei Togo (1-0, 1.29) vs Kazuto Taguchi (0-1, 19.29)

BayStars vs Carp: Yokohama Stadium 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Masaya Kyoyama (0-1, 6.75) vs Allen Kuri (1-0, 1.50)

Tigers vs Dragons: Kyocera Dome (Osaka) 2 pm, 1 am EDT

Koyo Aoyagi (1-0, 4.76) vs Yuya Yanagi (0-1, 6.75)

Active roster moves 4/2/2021

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 4/12

Central League

Activated

GiantsP23Ryoma Nogami
BayStarsP35Tomoya Mikami
SwallowsP62Hiroaki Saiuchi

Dectivated

SwallowsP21Taichi Yamano

Pacific League

Activated

FightersP18Kosei Yoshida
BuffaloesP11Sachiya Yamasaki

Dectivated

HawksP10Kotaro Otake
EaglesP59Shu Sugahara
BuffaloesP58Kazuyuki Kaneda
Baseball, Free, News

NPB wrap 3-26-21

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Pacific League

Hideaki Wakui improved to 6-3 on Opening Day in the Rakuten Eagles’ 8-2 win over the Nippon Ham Fighters at Sendai’s Rakuten Seimei Park Miyagi on Friday as Nippon Professional Baseball’s two leagues went into action.

Wakui showed unusually good command of his breaking pitches, including a screwball I don’t remember seeing from him. After pitching according to form in the first inning by throwing a four-seam fastball with about half his pitches, the Nippon Ham Fighters went into Andruw “I’m still waiting for my pitch” Jones mode as they kept looking for fastballs that never came and making weak contact on everything else.

Fighters starter Naoyuki Uwasawa surrendered a home run on his first pitch of the game to Ryosuke Tatsumi, and kept the bases pretty much jammed with Eagles runners. He allowed six runs over 4-2/3 innings.

Tanaka out for 3 weeks

After two months of having virtually everything on the field in Japan overshadowed by every scrap of news about Masahiro Tanaka, the news that he will miss three weeks with a soleus muscle calf injury barely made a ripple. Thank goodness for Opening Day.

At Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome, Shuta Ishikawa had a typical night, striking out six and walking three while allowing a run over five innings in the SoftBank Hawks’ 8-2 win over the Lotte Marines. Ishikawa retired the first nine batters he faced and allowed his one run in a backward Marines sixth inning in which Leonys Martin homered with one out and Lotte left the bases loaded.

Lotte starter Kota Futaki gave up five runs over five-plus innings, with all the runs scoring on home runs by Kenta Imamiya, Ukyo Shuto and Yuki Yanagita.

At MetLife Dome, Kona Takahashi allowed three runs over 7-1/3 to get the better of Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the Seibu Lions’ 4-3 win over the Orix Buffaloes with both right-handers making their first Opening Day starts. Three of the four Seibu runs were unearned, scoring with two outs after errors prolonged the first and third innings.

The wonderful Masataka Yoshida put Orix on the board in the sixth with a homer, Steven Moya doubled for the Buffaloes, and Adam Jones ripped a leadoff single off Tatsushi Masuda to put the tying runner on in the ninth before the righty closed out the game.

The loss was Orix’s Pacific League-worst 10th straight on Opening Day.

And since the PL is going to give them to us, let’s see some of their glove work.

In the Central League

Jerry Sands belted a pair of home runs, the second one, snapping a 3-3 tie and lifting the Hanshin Tigers to a 4-3 win over the Yakult Swallows at Tokyo’s Jingu Stadium. Sands also singled and walked, while celebrity rookie Teruaki Sato opened the scoring with a sac fly.

Shintaro Fujinami had the kind of day one expects from him now and then. He walked five and gave up five hits but just two runs over five innings. Robert Suarez got the save for the Tigers.

At Tokyo Dome, the Yomiuri Giants got an old-friend sighting they wished they hadn’t but it all worked out thanks to a three-run homer by catcher Takumi Oshiro and a ninth-inning sayonara blast by pinch hitter Yoshiyuki Kamei that won it over the DeNA BayStars 8-7.

Shunta Tanaka, who basically did everything with the Giants except earn Tatsunori Hara’s trust at second base – because I suspect Hara simply doesn’t trust second basemen as a general rule – began his tenure with DeNA by matching his 2020 RBI total, driving in six runs with three hits and a sac fly.

Zelous Wheeler singled in a run in the first, walked and scored in the third, and doubled in a run in the eighth for the Giants.

Giants ace Tomoyuki Sugano, who opted to stay in Japan for 2021 rather than sign in the States, surrendered three runs on eight hits and three walks over six innings.

Tanaka’s two-out, two-run single in the ninth off Kota Nakagawa tied it 7-7, but Kazuki Mishima, who was super as the DeNA closer since last summer, surrendered Kamei’s home run on his third pitch of the game.

Had Mishima gotten out of the inning, that would have been the first nine-inning tie this season since the owners decided this week to abandon extra innings in the name of faster games.

Giants BayStars highlights

At Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium, Dayan Viciedo capped a five-run eighth inning with a two-run homer as the Chunichi Dragons beat the Hiroshima Carp 7-6. Carp ace Daichi Osera, who opened last season with back-to-back complete games and finished it in surgery, started on Opening Day for the third straight year, but allowed four runs, two earned, over 7-1/3 innings and only threw 87 pitches.

New Carp Kevin Cron singled in his first at-bat and scored but finished 1-for-4.