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▼ Otani Strong-arms Fighters Past Giants
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The Japan News
It wasn’t a one-man show for two-way star Shohei Otani of the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, but he certainly had center stage all to himself when he fired a 163-kph pitch in an interleague win on Sunday at Tokyo Dome.
The fourth-year player, who got the start on the mound and batted fifth in the lineup, went the distance to help the Fighters beat the Yomiuri Giants 6-2.
Sho Nakata hit a two-run blast, and Yang Dai-kang also went deep as Nippon Ham avoided a three-game series sweep and put a halt to Yomiuri’s season-high six-game winning streak.
But Otani (4-4), who singled in three at-bats, drew a big reaction from the crowd when he broke the speed record for a pitch in a regular-season game when he hit 163 kph with a fastball to Luis Cruz in the fourth inning.
The righty shared the previous record of 162 kph with former Giants reliever Marc Kroon.
“He fouled it off, so I didn’t have the sense it was a great pitch,” Otani said about the new record during the on-field postgame interview. “It would have been better if I’d have gotten him to swing and miss.”
Otani held the Giants to two runs — one earned — on six hits, while walking two and fanning 10.
At the plate, Otani knocked in a run with a sacrifice fly in the third inning, and extended his career-long hitting streak to 15 straight games with a single to right in the sixth.
“Up until last year, in games in which he pitched and hit, he didn’t seem to be able to keep his concentration level up,” said Fighters skipper Hideki Kuriyama.
“But I feel like he’s now clearly able to separate Otani the batter and Otani the hitter and perform. And he adds depth to the lineup in that [No. 5] spot.”
It wasn’t a one-man show for two-way star Shohei Otani of the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, but he certainly had center stage all to himself when he fired a 163-kph pitch in an interleague win on Sunday at Tokyo Dome.
The fourth-year player, who got the start on the mound and batted fifth in the lineup, went the distance to help the Fighters beat the Yomiuri Giants 6-2.
Sho Nakata hit a two-run blast, and Yang Dai-kang also went deep as Nippon Ham avoided a three-game series sweep and put a halt to Yomiuri’s season-high six-game winning streak.
But Otani (4-4), who singled in three at-bats, drew a big reaction from the crowd when he broke the speed record for a pitch in a regular-season game when he hit 163 kph with a fastball to Luis Cruz in the fourth inning.
The righty shared the previous record of 162 kph with former Giants reliever Marc Kroon.
“He fouled it off, so I didn’t have the sense it was a great pitch,” Otani said about the new record during the on-field postgame interview. “It would have been better if I’d have gotten him to swing and miss.”
Otani held the Giants to two runs — one earned — on six hits, while walking two and fanning 10.
At the plate, Otani knocked in a run with a sacrifice fly in the third inning, and extended his career-long hitting streak to 15 straight games with a single to right in the sixth.
“Up until last year, in games in which he pitched and hit, he didn’t seem to be able to keep his concentration level up,” said Fighters skipper Hideki Kuriyama.
“But I feel like he’s now clearly able to separate Otani the batter and Otani the hitter and perform. And he adds depth to the lineup in that [No. 5] spot.”
- June 6, 2016
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