Tag Archives: Yoshinobu Yamamoto

NPB news: May 30, 2023

Japan’s annual interleague session started Tuesday with the Central League on the road for the first three-game series. On Opening Night, pitchers Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shoki Murakami, Shota Imanaga and Yuji Nishino showing their stuff off to the other league, and 23-year-old Chusei Mannami won a battle of the ages in Hokkaido to take over the Pacific League home run lead.

In case you missed it, I published my research about the Yomiuri Giants’ remarkable record in getting called strikes in 0-0 and 1-0 counts from 2009 to 2019.

Tuesday’s games

Tigers 3, Lions 1: At Seibu Dome, Shoki Murakami (5-1) returned to Seibu two years to the day after he got shelled in his pro debut. After two years of dominating the Western League, the 24-year-old returned and showed Seibu a thing or two, striking out nine, walking none and allowing a run over eight innings.

“I didn’t like this ballpark, but I do now,” he said after Hanshin won its ninth straight, the team’s longest win streak in 16 years.

Triples by Koji Chikamoto and Takumu Nakano, and a Sheldon Neuse RBI groundout made it 2-0 in the first, and Neuse singled in an insurance run after the Lions made it a one-run game, and Atsuki Yuasa worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his seventh save.

Continue reading NPB news: May 30, 2023

NPB news: May 21, 2023

Yomiuri’s Foster Griffin had his obligatory good outing against Chunichi, two second-chancers had big games for their clubs, while another guy who badly needed a second chance but finally got playing time with the team that drafted him in 2013 also delivered. The red-and-black attack keeps rolling, a former closer threw a complete game, and a rookie named Morishita got the better of a former rookie of the year named Morishita.

Minor moves

On Friday, the SoftBank Hawks called up a minor league pitcher, which is not really news worthy, other than that the team ordered him pulled off the mound in his Western League game so he could report to the major league club.

Meanwhile, DeNA announced it was letting the team’s recent graduate of MLB’s domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse suspension program to pitch in the Eastern League Sunday against Lotte as a tune-up for his next start. He was not deactivated.

Saturday’s games

Giants 6, Dragons 2: At Tokyo Dome, Foster Griffin (4-1) held Chunichi to two runs over six innings to improve to 3-0 against the Dragons, who coughed up the game’s first run on one-out singles by Takumi Oshiro and Yuto Akihiro and an error by shortstop Ryuku Tsuchida.

Naoki Yoshikawa doubled off Shinnosuke Ogasawara (3-2) and scored on a Kazumasa Okamoto third-inning single, while Yoshikawa and Okamoto reached in the fourth and Takumi Oshiro followed with his sixth homer, and his first career grand slam.

Second-chancer Seiya Hosokawa had two doubles for the Dragons and scored on Takaya Ishikawa’s fourth home run, while the Giants bullpen didn’t make the game interesting for a change.

Continue reading NPB news: May 21, 2023