MLB News: When Shintaro Fujinami threw 161 pitches in a game and it took a toll on him; now he is already GL

the eastern Shintaro Fujinami, new signing of Oakland Athletics for MLB, he was a high school phenom from the same draft class as star Shohei Ohtani, leaping incredibly from high school into the Hanshin Tigers’ rotation as a 19-year-old rookie and pitching to a 2.75 ERA in 137 2/3 innings as a start.

Over several years, he delivered outstanding results, pitching with an ERA under 3.00 during his first four professional seasons and making the Central League All-Star team in each of those first four seasons:

However, as Yakyu Cosmopolitan presents in a video recap of Fujinami’s career that fans will want to see, how Fujinami stayed on the mound to throw 161 pitchesby far the best record of his career, during his age-22 season (2016) in an outing that began with him giving up five runs in three innings.

You can also read: MLB News How is the Atléticos rotation now with the Japanese Shintaro Fujinami

It had already started showing some worrying command issues prior to that outing, and there’s no telling how much that outing might have affected him, but Fujinami began oscillating between the Tigers’ first team (i.e. his MLB club) and their farm system starting in 2017. Other struggles between 2017 and 2021 caused its population to vanish substantially:


Follow us on

Raphael Martinez

I am a fan of the King of Sports, especially the Boston Red Sox in MLB and in general all of Mexican baseball. This profession has given me the opportunity to cover big events such as the Caribbean Series, LMB All Star, LMP (uninterrupted since 2009), important players’ signatures. I had the chance to attend the 2013 World Classic in Arizona, USA, albeit as an amateur. Apart from this beautiful sport, I love basketball, where I have also narrated games and even an NBA friendly 10 years ago, but baseball is in my veins. Graduated in Communication Sciences from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS). , from which I graduated in 2011. I was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa and started in the world of sports journalism in 2004 in the newspaper El Sol de Mazatlán, where I was a baseball columnist and reporter at the same time. In January 2009 I arrived at El Debate as a journalist reporter and it took almost six years (in the first stage), until in November 2014 I emigrated to radio, providing my services at Línea Directa-Grupo RSN. My cycle there ended in July 2019 and a few days later, El Debate gave me another opportunity to work and opened the doors for me again. That is how I came to Al Bat, where I have been since 2019 as a web journalist.

see more

We wish to say thanks to the author of this article for this amazing web content

MLB News: When Shintaro Fujinami threw 161 pitches in a game and it took a toll on him; now he is already GL