Masato Yoshii

Masato Yoshii (吉井理人, Yoshii Masato, born April 20, 1965 in Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan) is a retired baseball player who is currently a pitching coach for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in the Japanese Pacific League. He pitched in the Major Leagues from 1998-2002.

Biography

Yoshii played in the Koshien high school baseball tournament twice, and joined the Kintetsu Buffaloes as the 2nd round pick in the 1983 draft after graduating from the same elementary, middle, and high schools as former Seibu Lions manager, Osamu Higashio. After spending some time in the minors, he marked his first victory in 1987, and in 1988, he won 10 games and saved 24 games, which won him the Pacific League relief pitcher title. He won 5 games and marked another 20 saves his next year, and in 1993, he became a starter. In 1995, he was traded to the Yakult Swallows, and won over 10 games for 3 straight years.

In the 1997 off-season, he became a free agent, and signed with the New York Mets. He won 6 games in his first year in the majors, and won 12 games in his second year. He was traded to the Colorado Rockies in 2000, and the Montreal Expos in 2001. He had surgery on his left shoulder in September, 2002.

In 2003, Yoshii returned to Japan, joining the Orix BlueWave. He was the team's opening-day starter that year, but had surgery on his left ankle in August, and ended the season with only 2 wins. He played in only 3 games in 2004, and was cut from the team at the end of the year. However, the Orix BlueWave merged with the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes during the off-season to form the Orix Buffaloes, and ended up joining the Buffaloes for spring training, and won 6 games in the 2005 season.

In 2006, he marked a win against the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, becoming the fifth player in to have recorded victories against 12 Japanese professional baseball teams. On April 1, 2007, he gave up two grand slams in one inning against the Rakuten Eagles, but the third baseman, Greg LaRocca had committed an error prior to loading the bases, giving Yoshii the irregular record of 8 runs given up, but 0 earned runs. On April 25, 2007, the 42-year old Yoshii started the game against the Rakuten Eagles with 18-year old Masahiro Tanaka as the opposing pitcher, and recorded a win giving up 1 run over 5 innings of pitching. This made him the 6th Japanese pitcher to have recorded a win at or above the age of 42, after Shinji Hamasaki, Tadashi Wakabayashi, Yoshinori Sato, Yutaka Ono, and Kimiyasu Kudo. He continued to pitch during the season as a starter, but was demoted to relief duty by manager Terry Collins after several poor performances. Yoshii requested to be traded to another team where he could continue to start, and was sent to the Chiba Lotte Marines on June 28 in exchange for an outfielder. However, his pitching continued to decline, and he ended the season with a 1-9 record before being demoted to the minors. He was released by the Marines on November 13, and announced his retirement to become a pitching coach for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters under manager Masataka Nashida.

Notes

• Template:Translation/Ref

See also

• Montreal Expos all-time roster
• List of Japanese baseball players
• List of Japanese players in Major League Baseball

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference, or Fangraphs