Dragons help Central League get off to fast start in interleague play
Round one goes to the Central League and, of all teams, the Chunichi Dragons. Interleague play kicked off across NPB last week, and the Dragons, who were in fifth place in the CL after the first-half of intraleague competition, are at the top of the ...
Tsubasa Aizawa's 11th-inning RBI single lifted the Hiroshima Carp to a 4-3 win over the second-place Hanshin Tigers on Wednesday, leaving the Carp with a magic number of 10 to clinch their second straight pennant. Aizawa, who entered the game as a defensive substitute, came ...
Randy Messenger allowed one run over six innings to earn his ninth win as the Hanshin Tigers took down the Hiroshima Carp 2-1 on Monday night. As Nippon Professional Baseball resumed play after the weekend's All-Star break, the second-place Tigers moved within seven games of ...
Masahiro Nakatani, Kosuke Fukudome and Takashi Toritani all hit solo homers to pace the Hanshin Tigers to a 4-1 victory over the Yokohama BayStars on Friday. Hanshin starter Randy Messenger (5-0), held the BayStars to one run on nine hits and a walk and struck ...
Maeda, Fukudome among Golden Glove recipients
Hiroshima Carp ace Kenta Maeda added another accolade to his already lengthy list when he was revealed as one of this year's Mitsui Golden Glove recipients on Tuesday afternoon. Maeda is a winner for the fourth straight season and fifth time overall. Maeda is the ...
Shortstop Takashi Toritani signed a five-year contract with the Hanshin Tigers on Thursday that could keep the team captain with the Central League club for the remainder of his career. Toritani, who had pondered a move to the majors this winter as a free agent, ...
Toritani may have thrived in majors
Two seasons ago, when it was thought Takashi Toritani was considering a move to MLB, many of the Pacific Rim scouts coming in and out of Japan were mostly lukewarm about his MLB prospects. They may had been fooled into thinking he was on ...
Little sizzle found during NPB winter
Where will Chihiro Kaneko and Takashi Toritani be playing next season? As the moving and shaking of the NPB offseason — or the Hot Hibachi League, as Japan Times columnist and HHL commissioner Wayne Graczyk likes to refer to it — begins to wind down, ...
Orix Buffaloes Sawamura Award winner Chihiro Kaneko is expected to draw the spotlight this winter as he aims to make a move to the major league via the posting system. Friday marked the period to begin procedures for those who have qualified as free agents. ...
Japan pounds Netherlands to reach WBC final round
Japan punches its ticket to the final round of the World Baseball Classic with a 16-4 rout of the Netherlands.
