NPB home run king Wladimir Balentien announces retirement
The Curacao native rewrote the NPB record book in 2013 with 60 home runs to surpass the previous single-season mark of 55, originally set by Yomiuri Giants legend Sadaharu Oh in 1964.
Wladimir Balentien will not return to SoftBank for 2022 season
The 37-year-old Curacao-born slugger, who holds NPB's single-season home run record, has expressed a desire to continue his career in Japan.
Rick van den Hurk took a no-hitter into the eighth inning and Wladimir Balentien homered twice to lead the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks to a 4-2 win over the defending Pacific League champion Saitama Seibu Lions on Thursday. Balentien, who joined the Hawks this season after ...
Swallows slugger Wladimir Balentien looks back on long career in Japan
Wladimir Balentien still remembers all the running. Balentien spent his first day in a Tokyo Yakult Swallows uniform in a constant state of motion. There was so much running, even on Day 1, he almost couldn't believe it. Balentien had arrived in Japan to play ...
Wladimir Balentien singled in two first-inning runs and six pitchers made that lead stand up in the Tokyo Yakult Swallows' 3-1 win over the Chunichi Dragons on Sunday afternoon. Veteran lefty Yudai Ono (7-8) surrendered an infield single to open the game at Nagoya Dome ...
Tetsuto Yamada and Wladimir Balentien each hit a pair of home runs, while Norichika Aoki went 4-for-4, as the Tokyo Yakult Swallows hammered the Yomiuri Giants 11-2 on Thursday. Former major leaguer Albert Suarez got the win in his first start for the Swallows. The ...
Swallows' hot-hitting lineup firing on all cylinders
Anyone who watched the Tokyo Yakult Swallows play this past week probably still has the Tokyo Ondo stuck in their head. When they close their eyes, they might still see a sea of small, mostly green umbrellas bobbing up and down in rhythm to ...
Swallows beat Giants in slugfest
The Yomiuri Giants provided the fireworks in the opener and the Tokyo Yakult Swallows lit up the scoreboard in second game. In the finale of the year's first three-game set between the crosstown rivals, they traded blows until only one was left standing. That turned out ...
Wladimir Balentien bashes pair of homers in Swallows' victory over BayStars
Wladimir Balentien knocked in a pair of home runs, helping 21-year-old starter Keiji Takahashi pick up his first professional win as the Tokyo Yakult Swallows edged the Yokohama BayStars 3-2 on Tuesday night. The result in front of 28,328 at Jingu Stadium erased Yokohama's half-game ...
Clutch performances by Wladimir Balentien and Yasuhiro Ogawa give Tokyo Yakult Swallows a big win
Wladimir Balentien was more than ready to turn the page on one of his worst weeks of the season. Being able to do it in an important game against the rival Yomiuri Giants was just icing on the cake. Balentien drove in a pair of ...
Ryoma Nishikawa's tie-breaking, three-run home run led the Central League-leading Hiroshima Carp to a 7-4 come-from-behind win over the Tokyo Yakult Swallows on Wednesday. One night after a heartbreaking loss in a game the Carp were on the verge of winning, Nishikawa came up in ...
Tokyo Yakult Swallows slugger Wladimir Balentien stays ahead of curve at plate
Every time Wladimir Balentien hits a home run, and he's hit quite a few since joining the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in 2011, he has to go back to the drawing board and recalibrate his approach. Because he knows in the time it took to jog ...
