Tag Archives: Shosei Togo

NPB 2020 Nov. 3

Tuesday’s games

Other news

Spangenberg, Kuriyama power Lions

Corey Spangenberg and veteran Takumi Kuriyama powered the Seibu Lions as they from behind to beat the Nippon Ham Fighters 5-4 at MetLife Dome on a holiday Tuesday afternoon game to pull into a tie for second-place in the Pacific League with the Lotte Marines.

Spangenberg’s fourth-inning solo homer put the Lions up 3-2, and his sac fly tied it 4-4 in the sixth. Shuta Tonosaki plated Fumikazu Kimura in the seventh with the go-ahead run as the Seibu bullpen locked it down after a rough outing by Kona Takahashi.

The right-hander had trouble from the start but managed a 1-2-3 first thanks to a good play from two-time Golden Glove winning shortstop Sosuke Genda to retire the leadoff man. Takahashi needed all the help he could get as he allowed four runs on four walks and six hits over 4-1/3 innings. He left after Taishi Ota’s lucky RBI single tied it 3-3, but rookie Tetsu Miyagawa’s two walks forced in a run to give the Fighters the lead again.

Kuriyama homered to tie it in the third and led off the sixth and scored on Spangenberg’s sac fly.

Ryosuke Moriwaki (7-1), the Lions’ fourth pitcher, worked around two hits and a walk in a scoreless seventh to earn the win after Kaima Taira and closer Tatsushi Masuda each retired three straight hitters.

Hawks come back to sink Marines

Nobuhiro Matsuda’s two-out RBI single broke a 3-3 sixth-inning tie and capped a four-run rally as the SoftBank Hawks came from behind to beat the Lotte Marines 4-3 at Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium. The win was the Hawks sixth straight against Lotte after starting the season 4-11-1 against them.

The Marines took a 3-0 lead against Rick van den Hurk (2-2) on Ikuhiro Kiyota’s two-run first-inning homer and Yudai Fujioka’s fourth-inning solo homer.

Ayumu Ishikawa (7-6) took a 3-0 lead into the sixth, when Akira Nakamura had the Hawks’ third one-out single of the game. Yuki Yanagita followed with another. With one out, Yurisbel Gracial beat a throw to first to avoid a double play before Kenji Akashi drilled a two-run double to the gap. Ryoya Kurihara’s smash single tied it. Takuya Kai worked a walk off new pitcher Yuki Karakawa and Matsuda singled in the go-ahead run.

Five Hawks relievers finished the job with Yuito Mori getting his 31st save.

The game was held up for 14 minutes in the bottom of the fifth when brilliant sunshine over the stadium rim blinded those at home plate.

Moya crushes Eagles’ hopes

Steven Moya homered twice scored three runs and drove in four to power the Orix Buffaloes to a 6-3 win at Osaka’s Kyocera Dome over the Rakuten Eagles, who fell 2-1/2 games out of second place with four games to play.

Moya closed the book on Eagles ace Takahiro Norimoto (5-7) with his second homer of the game, a two-run seventh-inning shot. D.J. Johnson and J.T. Chargois retired three batters apiece in a solid rear-guard effort for Rakuten.

Kyoda, Kinoshita boost Dragons past ‘Stars

Yota Kyoda snapped a 1-1 tie with a two-run fifth-inning triple in the Chunichi Dragons’ 7-5 win over the DeNA BayStars at Nagoya Dome. Chunichi catcher Takumi Kinoshita had three hits for the hosts. He singled to lead off the fifth, homered in the sixth and singled in an eighth-inning insurance run.

 Kikuchi rescues Carp, spoils Togo shutout

Ryosuke Kikuchi homered with two outs and a man on in the bottom of the ninth to break up rookie Shosei Togo‘s shutout and take Hiroshima Carp starter Allen Kuri off the hook in a 10-inning 2-2 tie with the Yomiuri Giants at Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium.

Swallows come back

Taishi Hirooka hit a seventh-inning, game-tying homer and Naomichi Nishiura’s three-run 10th-inning shot off Yuta Iwasada (6-3) decided it as the Yakult Swallows came back to beat the Hanshin Tigers 4-1 at Koshien Stadium.

Hirooka tied it off Hanshin’s second pitcher, Suguru Iwazaki, but Jon Edwards and Robert Suarez each worked a scoreless inning, while the Swallows bullpen put up four scoreless innings to force extra innings. Nishimura homered in the 10th and Taichi Ishiyama recorded his 18th save.

Jones ends 1st season in Japan

The Pacific League’s Orix Buffaloes announced that first-year import Adam Jones returned to the United States on Tuesday.

Jones played in 87 games with a .331 on-base percentage with a .417 slugging average with 12 home runs and 43 RBIs. He had been deactivated due to “lack of fitness.”

In Japanese language comments released by the team, Jones called it an amazing year despite the difficulties imposed by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

He said he had learned to alter his approach having learned about Japanese baseball and Japanese culture, and that he was looking forward to come back fit and compete next year for the entire season.

Active roster moves 11/3/2020

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 11/13

Central League

Activated

GiantsP17Kan Otake
GiantsP96Nattino Diplan
BayStarsP94Takamasa Kasai
BayStarsIF4Yukiya Ito
TigersOF25Taiga Egoshi
DragonsP50Tatsuya Shimizu
DragonsC68Iori Katsura
DragonsIF7Akira Neo

Dectivated

BayStarsP15Shoichi Ino
TigersP29Haruto Takahashi
DragonsP36Yuichiro Okano
DragonsC44Yuya Gunji

Pacific League

Activated

LionsP19Hiromasa Saito
HawksP44Rick van den Hurk
FightersP29Kazutomo Iguchi
BuffaloesP14Kazumasa Yoshida
BuffaloesP30Kohei Suzuki
BuffaloesIF24Kotaro Kurebayashi
BuffaloesIF42Aderlin Rodriguez
BuffaloesIF53Sho Gibo
BuffaloesOF00Hayato Nishiura

Dectivated

LionsP30Daiki Enokida
FightersP13Tsubasa Nabatame

Starting pitchers for Nov. 4, 2020

Pacific League

Lions vs Fighters: MetLife Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Zach Neal (5-8, 5.21) vs Kosei Yoshida (0-1, 5.40)

Marines vs Hawks: Zozo Marine Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Chen Wei-Yin (0-2, 2.25) vs Kodai Senga (10-6, 2.31)

Buffaloes vs Eagles: Kyocera Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Daichi Takeyasu (1-0, 0.00) vs Hideaki Wakui (11-4, 3.31)

Central League

Dragons vs BayStars: Nagoya Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Akiyoshi Katsuno (4-5, 3.65) vs Yuya Sakamoto (4-1, 5.31)

Tigers vs Swallows: Koshien Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Shintaro Fujinami (1-6, 4.68) vs Masanori Ishikawa (2-8, 4.73)

Carp vs Giants: Mazda Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Atsushi Endo (4-6, 4.13) vs Yuki Takahashi (1-2, 5.74)

NPB 2020 Oct. 27

Tuesday’s games

Other news

Hawks clinch 21st pennant

The SoftBank Hawks won the 21st championship in franchise history on Tuesday with a 5-1 win over their nemeses all season long, the Lotte Marines, at Fukuoka’s PayPay Dome.

Tsuyoshi Wada (8-1) struck out eight while allowing three hits and a walk over six innings. Wada, the winning pitcher in the team’s last clinching game, when they won the 2019 Japan Series, came out firing on all cylinders, pumping a fastball that usually sits at 87 mph up to 92. The lefty.

“I think we were all a little nervous today, so for Wada to come out and do what he did, it gave us all courage,” Hawks manager Kimiyasu Kudo said.

“This was a year that we didn’t even know would start, but we hung in there amid all the difficulties and uncertainty. We wanted to win so badly, but I don’t know if we could have done it without the players taking such good care of their conditioning during this very difficult year.”  

Tail-end hitter Hikaru Kawase put the hosts on the board in the fifth inning against Ayumu Ishikawa (7-5). He led off with a double, was sacrificed to third and scored on Akira Nakamura’s sacrifice fly. Hawks catcher Takuya Kai made it a 3-0 game in the sixth with his 10th home run, a two-run shot that plated Kenji Akashi.

Reliever Sho Iwasaki won an epic at-bat against pinch-hitter Katsuya Kakunaka to get out of the seventh inning with two men on, and lefty Livan Moinelo worked a 1-2-3 eighth.

Closer Yuito Mori took the mound in the ninth and the Marines held his feet to the fire.

The right-hander allowed one run on Shogo Nakamura’s leadoff walk, and an error by center fielder Yuki Yanagita on Ikuhiro Kiyota’s one-out double. After a two-out walk, Mori appeared to be out of the woods on a bouncer to third, but Taisei Makihara, who entered the game for his speed and defense, fumbled the ball to load the bases.

That brought Shuhei Fukuda to the plate as the potential tying run. For years, the Hawks fourth outfielder, Fukuda moved to the Marines over the winter as a free agent. Mori finally got him on his 39th pitch of the inning.

The Hawks have now won three straight against Lotte but still trail in their season series 7-11 with one tie.

Lions ground Eagles on Mori homer

Tomoya Mori’s three-run home run off Rakuten Eagles ace Takahiro Norimoto (5-6) lifted the Seibu Lions to a 4-3 win at MetLife Dome that moved them to within two games of the Pacific League’s final playoff spot.

Mori’s ninth home run made a winner out of Kona Takahashi (8-8), who allowed three runs on four hits and three walks over seven innings. Kaima Taira and Tatsushi Masuda finished up with one scoreless apiece with Masuda earning his 30th save.

Fighters get past Buffaloes

The top two hitters in the Nippon Ham Fighters lineup, Haruki Nishikawa, who reached base five times, and Shota Hiranuma each scored twice in a 5-3 win over the Orix Buffaloes at Osaka’s Kyocera Dome.

Steven Moya tied the game 2-2 in the bottom of the first for the Buffaloes with his 10th home run, while Bryan Rodriguez threw a scoreless inning of relief as the Fighters used seven pitchers on a bullpen day.

Nishikawa, who said last winter that he’d like to move to the majors in 2021 by way of the posting system, made his second costly base running mistake in a few days.

Lopez slams Giants

Jose Lopez, who spent his first two Japanese seasons with the Yomiuri Giants, hit a grand slam off his former team for his 996th career hit in Japan as the DeNA BayStars clobbered rookie Shosei Togo (8-6) in a 9-2 win at Yokohama Stadium.

The Giants’ magic number to clinch their second straight Central League pennant dropped to three thanks to the Chunichi Dragons’ 4-1 loss to the Hanshin Tigers.

Over the weekend, Lopez achieved his 2,000th hit between the majors and NPB, and is now four hits shy of joining his former Seattle Mariners teammate Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui as the third player to achieve 1,000-plus hits in both the majors and Nippon Professional Baseball.

Lopez’s home run was his ninth, while Tyler Austin hit his 19th for the BayStars. Shinichi Onuki (10-5) allowed two runs over six innings to earn the win.

Tigers win on grab bag of mistakes

The Chunichi Dragons’ bullpen which has been, after lefty starter Yudai Ono, the team’s biggest story this season, was snake-bit in a three-run, error-filled eighth inning in a 4-1 Hanshin Tigers win at Koshien Stadium.

With two outs and none on in the eighth, first baseman Dayan Viciedo dove to make a stop, and threw to the pitcher, who took his eye off the ball, allowing a runner to reach. On the next play, Fuku threw wide to first to put two on.

Dragons rookie Kaname Takino, whose first career hit over the weekend was unexpectedly greeted by fireworks at Jingu Stadium from a nearby event, made it a trifecta for Tigers fans. He tried to make a shoestring catch on a flare off the bat of Koji Chikamoto but kicked it away. The Tigers leadoff man was credited with a two-run triple before another run scored on a smashed infield single.

Tigers closer Robert Suarez surrendered a Viciedo leadoff double in the ninth before striking out the last three batters to record his 24th save.

Hanshin left fielder Jerry Sands, who was ejected on Sunday for abusive language toward a home plate umpire and fined 100,000 yen ($950) had two hits.

Kuri stuffs Swallows

Allen Kuri (8-5) threw his fifth straight solid start, hurling 7-2/3 innings for the Hiroshima Carp in a 2-0 win over the Yakult Swallows at Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium.

Kuri struck out 10 but loaded the bases in the eighth on a single and two walks, forcing lefty Atsuya Horie to come in and strike out Swallows batting star Munetaka Murakami to preserve the two-run lead. Geronimo Franzua worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his 16th save.

Over his last five starts, Kuri has allowed three runs, two earned, over 40 innings. During that stretch, he’s walked nine but struck out 38 and allowed no home runs.

Swallows right-hander Hirotoshi Takanashi (3-6) worked seven innings and took the tough loss.

Giants’ Mercedes out for season

Yomiuri Giants lefty Cristopher Mercedes is out for the season after having surgery to clean out his left elbow, the Daily Sports reported Tuesday.

The 26-year-old is 4-4 this season with a 3.10 ERA in 11 games. He will probably will be unable to resume training for at least a month.

Former Red Sox pitcher Tazawa goes undrafted

Junichi Tazawa, the 34-year-old right-hander who made history by snubbing Nippon Professional Baseball’s draft and becoming the first marquee Japanese amateur to turn pro with a major league club, was in turn snubbed by NPB teams in Tuesday’s draft.

As a Japanese citizen, Tazawa is only eligible to sign his first NPB contract after being selected in the draft. For years, he hoped to play for Japan’s national team but was blacklisted because of NPB’s infamous Tazawa Rule, which was recently revoked.

He is currently playing for the Musashino Heat Bears of the independent Baseball Challenge League, Japan’s largest independent circuit. He was not even selected in the developmental draft, from which a team could sign him to a non-roster contract with a 240,000-yen minimum salary (roughly $2,200).

There was some speculation that he was passed over because teams don’t wish to deal with players who are represented by agents.

Active roster moves 10/27/2020

Deactivated players can be re-activated from 11/6

Central League

Activated

BayStarsP41Shuto Sakurai
BayStarsIF6Keito Mori
BayStarsOF00Shumei Miyamoto
DragonsP25Yu Sato
DragonsP36Yuichiro Okano

Dectivated

BayStarsIF44Keita Sano
BayStarsOF61Tatsuo Ebina

Pacific League

Activated

MarinesP42Frank Herrmann
BuffaloesIF67Keita Nakagawa

Dectivated

MarinesP49Chen Kuan-yu

Starting pitchers for Oct. 28, 2020

Pacific League

Lions vs Eagles: MetLife Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Shota Hamaya (2-2, 5.31) vs Hideaki Wakui (11-3, 3.20)

Buffaloes vs Fighters: Kyocera Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Hirotoshi Masui (2-2, 3.60) vs Drew VerHagen (7-6, 3.51)

Hawks vs Marines: PayPay Dome 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Kodai Senga (9-6, 2.49) vs Chen Wei-yin (0-1, 2.25)

Central League

BayStars vs Giants: Yokohama Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Yuya Sakamoto (4-1, 4.81) vs Yuki Takahashi (1-1, 2.77)

Tigers vs Dragons: Koshien Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Shintaro Fujinami (1-6, 4.99) vs Akiyoshi Katsuno (4-4, 3.61)

Carp vs Swallows: Mazda Stadium 6 pm, 5 am EDT

Atsushi Endo (3-6, 4.35) vs Masanori Ishikawa (2-7, 4.61)