Yoshinobu Yamamoto (25-Orix Buffaloes), the best pitcher in Nippon Professional Baseball, threw a nine-inning, eight-strikeout no-hitter in front of New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. It was the second no-hitter of his career and just the third in franchise history.스포츠토토
Yamamoto pitched a nine-inning, one-hit, eight-strikeout no-hitter to lead the Orix to a 4-0 victory over the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Nippon Professional Baseball 2023 at Jojo Marine Stadium in Chiba, Japan, on Monday.
The game was the first time Yankees general manager Cashman had a “hunch” about Yamamoto. Yamamoto, who will challenge for the major leagues as a post player after this season, has already received interest from several teams in the United States, and Cashman personally flew to Japan to meet with him.
In front of Cashman, Yamamoto impressed. After striking out the side in the first inning on seven pitches, Yamamoto pitched a perfect game in the fifth inning on just 47 pitches. He used a 150-mph fastball with a cascading splitter and a big curveball to draw swings and misses.
A leadoff walk to Hisanori Yasuda in the sixth broke up the perfect game, but the no-hitter continued. Yamamoto took the mound in the ninth on 87 pitches and got two outs. In the ninth inning, his 94th pitch of the game reached 156 kilometers.
With two outs in the ninth, he walked Takashi Ogino on a hard-hit ball, but induced Yudai Fujioka to ground out to second base to complete the no-hitter. Nine-inning no-hitter with 102 total pitches. Yamamoto, who threw a no-hitter for the second straight year on June 18 last year against the Seibu Lions, became the third pitcher in Nippon Professional Baseball history to do so. It’s been 82 years since the last two, Eiji Sawamura in 1936-1937 and Tadashi Kameda in 1940-1941.
Despite his diminutive 5-foot-8 frame, Yamamoto is one of Japan’s best right-handed pitchers with a fastball that tops out at 159 mph and averages 152 mph, a high-speed splitter that reaches 150 mph and a slower curveball that goes wherever he wants. He swept the Sawamura Award in 2021 and 2022, leading the league in wins, ERA, strikeouts, winning percentage, and complete games.
So far this year, he leads both major leagues in wins and ERA with a 14-5 record and 1.26 ERA in 20 games (143 innings). Since August, he has been increasingly effective, throwing 42 consecutive scoreless innings in his last six games. He is expected to win the Sawamura Award for the second time in three years, and interest from major league clubs is growing, raising hopes for a big contract.