Baseball

Manabu Kitabeppu, baseball commentator and former ace pitcher for the Hiroshima Carp, died at a hospital in Hiroshima on Friday. He was 65. Kitabeppu joined the Carp in 1976. He secured double-digit wins for 11 consecutive seasons from 1978 thanks to his outstanding control, helping the team clinch back-to-back Japan […]

KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Two-way star Shohei Ohtani hit his MLB-leading 23rd home run Saturday, becoming the second Japanese to log 150 homers in the big leagues after Hideki Matsui, as the Los Angeles Angels suffered a 10-9 walk-off loss to the Kansas City Royals. Ohtani crushed a first-pitch changeup […]

Hall of Fame pitcher Shigeru Sugishita, who was best known for his mastery of what has become Japanese baseball’s trademark pitch, the forkball, has died, his former team, the Chunichi Dragons, said Friday. He was 97. Known as “the God of the forkball,” Sugishita won 215 career games, all but […]

Baseball is an unforgiving sport. Perseverance is not just a good quality for a hitter — it is essential. There is no other way to deal with the constant failure that goes hand-in-hand with trying to hit a baseball. It is hard enough to just make contact with the ball. […]

Shohei Ohtani shone on the mound and at the plate, Mickey Moniak delivered the tying hit and the go-ahead home run, and the Los Angeles Angels held on to beat the Texas Rangers 5-3 on Thursday in Arlington, Texas. The Angels won three of four in the series against the […]

Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture – Yuma Tongu and Yutaro Sugimoto belted ninth-inning solo home runs to bring the two-time defending Pacific League champion Orix Buffaloes from behind in a 3-2 interleague win over the Central League-leading Hanshin Tigers on Thursday. Trailing 2-1 with one out against Tigers closer Atsuki Yuasa (0-2) […]

Arlington, Texas – Shohei Ohtani belted his American League-leading 21st home run and got multiple hits for the fourth straight game during the Los Angeles Angels’ 6-3 loss against the Texas Rangers on Wednesday. While his team’s three-game winning run came to an end at Globe Life Field, Ohtani’s two-run, […]

The Oakland Athletics inched closer to a move to Las Vegas when the Nevada state assembly approved a bill providing public funding to assist in the construction of a new stadium on Wednesday. The assembly voted 25-15 in favor of providing $380 million in public funding toward the Athletics’ proposed […]

Yokohama – Trevor Bauer struck out 12 in a three-hit victory as the Central League’s DeNA BayStars beat the Pacific League’s Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters 2-1 on Wednesday. The BayStars’ interleague win at Yokohama Stadium kept them tied atop the interleague standings and 3½-games behind the league-leading Hanshin Tigers in […]

Nishinomiya, Hyogo Pref. – Orix Buffaloes ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out 11 over eight innings in a 2-0 win over the Hanshin Tigers in an interleague game Tuesday. Yamamoto (6-2) allowed just two hits while walking one and hitting a batter in a 112-pitch outing at Koshien Stadium. Soichiro Yamazaki […]