Japanese Baseball Dec 29, 2020
Former Tigers outfielder Yuya Nohara will manage the 17-player team, which is scheduled to begin competitive play in April.
Baseball / Japanese Baseball Dec 12, 2020
Former big league outfielder Kosuke Fukudome returned to the Chunichi Dragons, his first pro team, the Central League club announced Saturday. The 43-year-old left-handed hitter joined the Dragons in 1999 out of the corporate leagues. Fukudome, the CL's 2006 MVP, spent five seasons in the big ...
Japanese Baseball Nov 11, 2020
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 ...
Baseball / Japanese Baseball Nov 7, 2020
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, ...
Japanese Baseball Oct 27, 2020
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.
Japanese Baseball Oct 9, 2020
Hanshin president Kenji Ageshio to resign over coronavirus cluster infection
Three Tigers players tested positive in March while another group was infected in September.
Baseball / Japanese Baseball | The week in NPB Sep 28, 2020
Virus-hit Tigers endure tough, eventful week in Central League
by Jason Coskrey
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 ...
Baseball / Japanese Baseball Sep 26, 2020
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 ...
Baseball / Japanese Baseball | The week in NPB Sep 7, 2020
Tigers still at square one with Shintaro Fujinami
by Jason Coskrey
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 ...
Baseball / Japanese Baseball Sep 1, 2020
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.
Baseball / Japanese Baseball Sep 1, 2020
Drafted with the top pick by the Tigers out of high school in 1999, Fujikawa became renowned for his explosive "fireball" four-seam fastball.
Baseball / Japanese Baseball Jul 31, 2020
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 ...