Baseball

Since Shohei Ohtani made his major league debut in 2018, the comparisons to Babe Ruth have been unrelenting. On Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Angels two-way player passed The Babe — at least in the eyes of Major League Baseball. Ohtani’s strikeout of Houston’s Jeremy Pena in the second inning […]

Kitahiroshima, Hokkaido – The Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters said Monday they have acquired switch-hitting infielder Alen Hanson from the Ibaraki Astro Planets of Japan’s independent Baseball Challenge League. The 30-year-old from the Dominican Republic played a total of 261 major league games between 2016 and 2019 for the Pittsburgh Pirates, […]

Japanese baseball’s restrictions on attendance during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic were a distant memory as nearly 30,000 fans watched the Chiba Lotte Marines host the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks at Zozo Marine Stadium on Friday night. A crowd that size is more than usual for the Marines, but not […]

Newly minted starter Koki Kitayama and four relievers came within one out of a combined no-hitter as the hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters blanked the Seibu Lions 1-0 in the Pacific League on Thursday. Chusei Mannami put the Fighters ahead with his fifth home run of the year in the top […]

Boston – Masataka Yoshida extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a home run as the Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays 11-5 on Thursday to sweep their four-game series. The first-year MLB player’s red-hot hitting coincides with a strong run of results by Boston, which has […]

St. Louis – Shohei Ohtani tied his career high with 13 strikeouts but gave up four runs over five innings in the Los Angeles Angels’ 6-4 comeback win against the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday. The two-way star reached 500 career strikeouts in MLB, making him only the second player […]

Yokohama – Former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer worked seven innings of one-run ball in his much-hyped debut in Japan, leading the DeNA BayStars to a 4-1 Central League win over the Hiroshima Carp on Wednesday. Bauer (1-0) repeatedly got in and out of jams to keep the damage […]

The Tokyo Yakult Swallows were the dominant force in the Central League the past two seasons. The team had a powerful offense led by record-setting slugger Munetaka Murakami and competed in the past two Japan Series — winning the first and losing the second in seven games. It has been […]

Boston – Masataka Yoshida had an RBI double among his two hits as the Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays 6-5 Monday on a walk-off solo home run by Alex Verdugo. Yoshida, a two-time batting champion in Japan’s Pacific League, extended his hitting streak to 11 games with […]

Yokohama – Former Los Angeles Dodgers star Trevor Bauer took part in his first pitching practice at Yokohama Stadium on Monday in preparation for his Nippon Professional Baseball debut with the Central League-leading Yokohama DeNA BayStars. DeNA skipper Daisuke Miura revealed the previous day that the 2020 Cy Young winner […]