Hanshin pitching icon Kyuji Fujikawa calls it quits after 22 years
Hanshin Tigers pitching icon Kyuji Fujikawa brought down the curtain on his 22-year career Tuesday following his team's 4-0 loss to Central League champions the Yomiuri Giants. The 40-year-old reliever had aimed to retire at the end of the current coronavirus-interrupted season with at least ...
Tigers slugger Justin Bour heads home to U.S., not expected to return to team
Hanshin Tigers lefty slugger Justin Bour, who joined Nippon Professional Baseball in December, has returned to the United States the Central League club said Saturday. The Tigers signed the 32-year-old Bour to a ¥270 million contract, but he failed to live up to his salary, ...
Hanshin and Rakuten win rights for draft's coveted top prospects
The Tigers bested a crowded field to get first crack at Kindai slugger Teruaki Sato, while the Eagles won a fierce battle for Waseda pitcher Takahisa Hayakawa.
Hanshin president Kenji Ageshio to resign over coronavirus cluster infection
Three Tigers players tested positive in March while another group was infected in September.
Virus-hit Tigers endure tough, eventful week in Central League
The difference between playing a mostly representative NPB season — as opposed to 50 or 60 games — or having it all fall apart was always as tenuous as some dinner plans. That was laid bare last week as the league experienced its first midseason ...
Five Hanshin Tigers players, four from the Central League's club's top team, have tested positive for the new coronavirus, the club said Friday — before the team, minus the infected players and those deemed to have been in close contact them — took on ...
Tigers still at square one with Shintaro Fujinami
Shintaro Fujinami gave up 11 runs — seven earned — in 4 2/3 innings on Saturday night. That's more than he’s ever allowed in his career and, per Daily Sports, more than any Hanshin pitcher has in a single outing. The loss dropped the second-place ...
Hanshin's Kyuji Fujikawa 'fired up' about quest to reach 250 saves before impending retirement
With five saves to collect before the NPB season ends in November, the 40-year-old right-hander is aiming to join an elite group of pitchers.
Drafted with the top pick by the Tigers out of high school in 1999, Fujikawa became renowned for his explosive "fireball" four-seam fastball.
Swallows' Keiji Takahashi outduels Tigers' Shintaro Fujinami
Unheralded lefty Keiji Takahashi pitched and fielded his position well over eight innings for the Yakult Swallows in a 6-0 Central League win over the Hanshin Tigers on Thursday. Takahashi (1-1) worked around a first-inning leadoff single by making a good defensive play to force ...
Tigers back on prowl in Central League
Their resurgence continued last week at Koshien Stadium, where Hanshin took two of three against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows and swept the Chunichi Dragons.
Yuki Yanagita powers Hawks past Eagles in six-game series
With no All-Star Game, Yuki Yanagita held his own personal home run derby last week in Fukuoka. The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles may have arrived from Sendai in first place and with NPB's hottest hitter, Hideto Asamura, but it was Yanagita whose star shone brightest ...
