Oakland A’s signed pitcher Shintaro Fujinami

AsianPlayers | March 28, 2023 | Basketball | No Comments

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The road for Shintaro Fujinami hasn’t always been a clear path to success. He was selected first overall back in 2012 by the Hanshin Tigers in NPB, and Shohei Ohtani was in that class as well. The potential has always been there, but unlocking that potential hasn’t always been easy.

After he was drafted, Fuji went straight to the big leagues as a 19 year old in Japan, finishing with a 2.75 ERA across 137.2 innings. He was nearly ten years younger than the average player in that league. He pitched well through 2016, but in 2017 he started having some issues with his command, and started splitting time between the big leagues and the minors.

Last season, at age 28, the righty seemed to get his command under control, and that led him to signing a one-year deal with the Oakland A’s this off-season.

In the glimpses of Fuji that we have seen, he’s been exactly as advertised: Utterly dominant stuff when he’s locating, with bouts of wildness.

His first spring game was a brief explainer into the Shintaro Fujiami Experience. He went two innings total in that start against Shohei Ohtani, and in the first inning, he led off the game with a strikeout of the pesky David Fletcher. Luis Rengifo singled off Fuji–literally–but the 6-foot-6 right-hander struck out Jake Lamb, then got Mickey Moniak to pop out to second.

Not a bad first inning.

In the second, he walked the first three batters he faced, loading the bases. After a quick visit with pitching coach Scott Emerson, he refocused and recorded a strikeout and a double play to get out of the inning without allowing any damage.

In his second start he allowed his first run of the spring, starting the second inning off with a walk to Arizona’s Buddy Kennedy, before a ground out pushed the runner to second, a wild pitch sent Kennedy to third, and a single drove him home. Fujinami wasn’t giving up hard contact. He beat himself in that inning.