Jason Coskrey - The Japan Times

August 22, 2025

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Jason Coskrey

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Jason Coskrey

Jason Coskrey is a sports writer for The Japan Times. His primary focus is Japanese baseball, but he has also covered soccer, American football, boxing and basketball. He previously worked for the Marietta Daily Journal in Marietta, Ga. A native of Detroit, he is a graduate of the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN

Jan 11, 2017

Time ripe for Lions hurler Kikuchi to prove worth on mound

There is a chance that by 2019, pitchers Yusei Kikuchi and Shohei Otani could both be major leaguers. In 2009, MLB scouts flocked to Hanamaki Higashi High School, in Iwate Prefecture, to flirt with Kikuchi, a fire-balling lefty, before returning a few years later to put a full-court press on Otani.

BASEBALL

Jan 9, 2017

Former MLB great Ramirez reaches agreement with Kochi

Former MLB star Manny Ramirez is on his way to Japanese baseball after Monday's announcement that the 44-year-old slugger had reached an agreement with the Kochi Fighting Dogs of the independent four-team Shikoku Island League Plus.

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK

Jan 7, 2017

Players ramp up training before camps

There were a number of NPB stars on the move during the first week of 2017.

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN

Jan 2, 2017

New year brings new hopes for some in Japanese baseball

Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched his final game of 2016 in the maroon and yellow of the Gigantes de Carolina in the Puerto Rican winter league. Matsuzaka threw seven innings in that Dec. 29 start, giving up three hits and allowing his only run in the seventh inning.

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN

Dec 22, 2016

Tanaka, Iwakuma the dream ticket for Japan's WBC roster

Samurai Japan added the first major league player to its roster for the World Baseball Classic on Wednesday, when Houston Astros outfielder Norichika Aoki signed up for his third WBC.

Japan Times

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball

Dec 20, 2016

Otani heads early WBC roster for Samurai Japan

Samurai Japan released a partial roster for next spring's World Baseball Classic on Tuesday, naming 18 players who will be part of the squad tasked with bringing the title back to Japan in March.

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN

Dec 19, 2016

Free-agent compensation choices usually risky bets

The Orix Buffaloes will hope taking right-handed pitcher Kazuyuki Kaneda from the Hanshin Tigers as compensation for the Tigers signing former Buffalos outfielder Yoshio Itoi in free agency ends up being a productive outcome for the loss of such a talented player, but history isn't really on their side....

JAPAN / Politics

Dec 10, 2016

Valentine denies official talk of being offered Japan ambassador post by Trump

Ex-Chiba Lotte Marines manager Bobby Valentine says he has not been in contact with the Trump team amid reports he is under consideration to become the ambassador to Japan.

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN

Dec 5, 2016

Giants stay busy during offseason

The Yomiuri Giants haven't won the Central League pennant since 2014, which might as well be 1914 in Yomiuri Land, and apparently are not going to sit idly by and watch another team take the flag in 2017.

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK

Dec 2, 2016

Otani eyes new goals following award-winning season for Fighters

Asking what can Shohei Otani do better in 2017 is akin to the question of what do you get the person who already has everything.

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball

Nov 30, 2016

Resurgent Carp veteran Arai turned back clock during MVP season

Many fans might have thought Takahiro Arai was heading to the Hiroshima Carp to retire.

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball

Nov 29, 2016

Otani, Arai win MVP awards

Shohei Otani's historic season of rewriting the record books and challenging conventional baseball wisdom reached its logical conclusion on Monday night.

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball

Nov 25, 2016

Otani makes history with Best Nine selection at both pitcher and DH

Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters star Shohei Otani made history when he was named to the Pacific League's Best Nine team as both pitcher and designated hitter when the awards were announced Friday afternoon.

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK

Nov 18, 2016

Fighters not giving up on 'Handkerchief Prince' Saito

Yuki Saito hasn't justified the hype that came with his being drafted by the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in 2010, but the reigning Japan Series champions aren't giving up on him just yet.

Japan Times

BASEBALL

Nov 15, 2016

Otani's extraordinary skills gain wider exposure during games against Mexico, Netherlands

The only reason Shohei Otani won't be Japan's breakout star at the 2017 World Baseball Classic is because everybody is already talking about the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters star.

Japan Times

BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball

Nov 15, 2016

Kuriyama says big comeback by Fighters a catalyst for future

When the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters were trailing the two-time Japan Series champion Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks by 11½ games in the Pacific League in late June, almost no one expected them to end up as league champions, let alone Japan Series champions, by the end of the season.

Japan Times

BASEBALL

Nov 14, 2016

Suzuki sends Japan to victory with 10th-inning grand slam

For the second straight night, a hit by Shohei Otani led to a six-run inning that helped Japan erase a large deficit. As was also the case the first time, Japan and the Netherlands took things into extra innings, where the tiebreaker rule used at the World Baseball Classic would help determine a winner....

Japan Times

BASEBALL

Nov 13, 2016

Ono lifts Japan with sayonara single in 10th

The game was supposed to only be a dress rehearsal for next year's World Baseball Classic. But the atmosphere during the ninth inning at Tokyo Dome made it feel a whole lot like the real thing.

BASEBALL

Nov 12, 2016

Otani, Akiyama shine as Samurai Japan trounces Mexico in rematch

Shohei Otani has already shown what he can do on the international level with his arm. On Friday night at Tokyo Dome, he got the opportunity to take his cuts at the plate.

BASEBALL

Nov 11, 2016

Mexico outplays Japan in exhibition series opener

There's one big positive Japan can take out of the opening game of the 2016 Samurai Japan Challenge, which is meant to help the team prepare for the 2017 World Baseball Classic.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.

The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers

By Tomoko Otake

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