Baseball

Yokohama – The only two teams without a win in the Central League were both looking for the same thing Tuesday night at Yokohama Stadium. The Tokyo Yakult Swallows were the ones who found it. Yasutaka Shiomi hit a game-tying two-run double in the eighth and Shingo Kawabata followed it […]

Major League Baseball told teams on Monday that fully vaccinated players, coaches and other Tier 1 staff can enjoy loosened COVID-19 protocols, with more restrictions lifted once a team reaches 85% vaccination. In an internal memo received by several outlets, MLB “strongly encouraged” the players and staff to receive one […]

Following an offseason that was shorter than usual, pro baseball returned to Japan over the weekend. There were home runs, super plays in the field, highly anticipated debuts and even fans in the stands. There were also, however, reminders things aren’t quite back to normal as NPB opens another season […]

Yoshiyuki Kamei doesn’t actually hit a walk-off, or otherwise huge, home run every time he steps up to the plate — it just feels that way sometimes. Kamei connected on another one in his very first at-bat of the 2021 season to beat the Yokohama BayStars at Tokyo Dome on […]

Japanese baseball may still be trying to adjust to a new normal, but there’s one thing that hasn’t changed. When you need a big hit, send Yoshiyuki Kamei to the plate. Kamei made his only at-bat of the night count, connecting on a sayonara home run to send the Yomiuri […]

Japanese baseball is back on Friday, which makes this a great time to single out a few players in the Pacific League who fans should keep an eye on this season. Ryoya Kurihara, Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, catcher One one hand, 2020 was a breakout year for Kurihara. He’s listed as […]

Japanese baseball is back on Friday, which makes this a great time to single out a few players in the Central League who fans should keep an eye on this season. Shosei Togo, Yomiuri Giants, pitcher Togo is the Giants’ future. If Tomoyuki Sugano had signed with an MLB team […]

The last time Masahiro Tanaka was in Japan, he went 24-0 during the regular season and led the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles to the 2013 Pacific League pennant and Japan Series title before heading off to join the New York Yankees. While Tanaka was away, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks became […]

For nearly a decade, it seems Central League teams have simply fought among themselves to see who would lose to the Pacific League representative in the Japan Series. No team from the league has won the title since the Yomiuri Giants in 2012, but like Sisyphus and his boulder, they […]

Nippon Professional Baseball said Monday that games will end in nine innings and no extra innings will be played this season to accommodate early closing hours at restaurants and bars in the Tokyo Metropolitan region amid the coronavirus pandemic. The government’s state of emergency for Tokyo and three nearby prefectures […]