Tag Archives: Yoshitomo Tsutsugo

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NPB games, news of June 28, 2019

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League play resumed in Japan on Friday with four games. All six Pacific League teams were in action, while the Hiroshima Carp, who fell out of first place during interleague were in Yokohama in the Central League’s only game.

Pacific League

Hawks 7, Fighters 5

At Sapporo Dome, Kodai Senga and Kohei Arihara, the two hottest PL pitchers from the start of the season, showed some superb pitches, but were inconsistent in their location in a pitcher’s duel that turned out nothing like the announcers promised in the buildup.

Senga walked four and struck out a season-low five and gave up a bunch of hard-hit balls that allowed him to only give up one run over six innings.

Arihara, who started the season as a machine, getting everybody to swing and miss at his changeup, also gave up some shots while walking three and striking out four as he allowed three runs over six innings.

Here are the Hawks, Fighters highlights.

Marines 6, Eagles 5

At Rakuten Seimei Park, Rakuten had to call on closer Yuki Matsui, who did not see action on Tuesday because they wanted to give him six days off before pitching again perhaps?

Anyway, the lefty couldn’t find the strike zone. He got the first two batters out after falling behind but walked the next three. Afterward he said, “I should have been tougher with the bases loaded.”

Here are Marines, Eagles highlights.

Buffaloes 4, Lions 0

At Metlife Dome, Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out 11 and walked two to win a tight pitchers’ duel with the Lions’ Tatsuya Ishii, who allowed one run over eight innings. It was the 20-year-old Yamamoto’s first career shutout and his first win since May 28.

Here are the Buffaloes-Lions highlights.

Central League

BayStars 13, Carp 3

At Yokohama Stadium, Jose Lopez and Yoshitomo Tsutsugo ruined my story about Alejandro Mejia’s first big game of the season after getting promoted back from Hiroshima’s farm team.

Lopez and Tsutsugo each belted a pair of homers while headline writers discarded themes such as “BayStars drop bombs on Hiroshima,” while Neftali Soto, last year’s CL champ, hit his league-leading 23rd home run.

Alejandro Mejia

My minor league season records go back to 1991, and during that span only eight players have hit 19 or more home runs in a Western League season. The WL is a notorious pitcher’s league with huge parks and low averages. Of those eight, four have become certified power hitters in NPB, Takahiro Okada, Nobuhiko Matsunaka, Kenji Jojima and Xavier Batista. Batista probably had the most impressive run of any of those guys, hitting 21 in 177 at-bats two years ago.

Mejia hit 20 last year in 300 plate appearances and joined the Carp first team at the end of interleague having hit 19 in 201 at-bats this spring in the minors.

In Friday’s game, Mejia, playing third with Batista at first, went 3-for-4 with a home run. So that’s a start after going hitless in three at-bats in Wednesday’s interleague finale against Rakuten.

Baseball, Commentary, News, Paid Content

Having a Tsutsugo at Japan’s adult-centered youth ball

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Yoshitomo Tsutsugo
Yoshitomo Tsutsugo has his eyes on the future.

DeNA BayStars cleanup hitter Yoshitomo Tsutsugo asked Friday why Japan even has youth baseball if its culture values winning over teaching kids and helping them grow.

Japanese baseball is realizing there is a problem as the population shrinks but the baseball-playing population shrinks even faster. When Niigata Prefecture’s High School Baseball Federation recently took steps to protect high school pitchers’ arms in their local tournament, it was ridiculed from some quarters by those who worry that protecting kids will ruin competition.

Some people in Japan seem to think that the glory of sacrificing one’s body for the sake of their school’s victory is a good thing. One wonders if such people would be just as happy if the national high school tournament at Koshien Stadium were replaced by gladiatorial combat.

Read my story for Kyodo News here.

At his Tokyo press conference, Tsutsugo, the BayStars cleanup hitter and captain took aim at the youth sports authorities for their failure to institute rules and at coaches who forget that the game is for the kids.

“People in the baseball community are pushing for a resurgence in the sport at the youth level, but if you don’t make it fun, if you don’t protect the children, there is no point in having baseball at all,” he said.

Tsutsugo presented the results of some research by Japan’s leading Tommy John surgeon, Kozo Furushima, who has studied youth baseball injuries. One is particularly interesting, although it does involve a small group of student athletes (60) at a high school that frequently reaches the most prestigious national tournament finals at Koshien Stadium.

Of those 60, 39 had experienced elbow pain in junior high school, and 18 of those had relapses in high school. Those 18 relapses accounted for 90 percent of the elbow-pain sufferers, as only two of the 21 players felt elbow pain for the first time in high school. This suggests that fewer high school kids would be hurt if more injuries were prevented at a younger age.

Elbow pain graphic
Graphic from Dr. Kozo Furushima indicating that among 60 new high school students, only two who had not suffered elbow pain before high school had those injuries in high school.