List of top Nippon Professional Baseball strikeout pitchers

The following is a list of Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers who have recorded at least 2,000 strikeouts. In baseball, a strikeout occurs when the batter receives three strikes during his time at bat. Strikeouts are associated with dominance on the part of the pitcher and failure on the part of the batter.

Masaichi Kaneda has the most career strikeouts in Nippon Professional Baseball. During a 19-year career, he struck out 4,490 batters.

The List

†	Denotes elected to Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.
Bold	Denotes active player.

A player is considered "inactive" if he has not played baseball for one year or has announced his retirement.
Stats updated as of the end of 2015 season.

Rank	Player (R/L)	K	Years pitched
1	Masaichi Kaneda (L) †	4,490	1950–1969
2	Tetsuya Yoneda (R) †	3,388	1956–1977
3	Masaaki Koyama (R) †	3,159	1953–1973
4	Keishi Suzuki (L) †	3,061	1966–1985
5	Yutaka Enatsu (L)	2,987	1967–1984
6	Takao Kajimoto (L) †	2,945	1954–1973
7	Kimiyasu Kudoh (L) †	2,852	1981–2010
8	Kazuhisa Inao (R) †	2,574	1956–1969
9	Choji Murata (R) †	2,363	1968–1990
10	Masahiro Yamamoto (L)	2,310	1986–2015
11	Minoru Murayama (R) †	2,271	1959–1972
12	Shoichi Ono (L)	2,244	1956–1970
13	Hiromi Makihara (R)	2,111	1983–2001
14	Hisashi Yamada (R) †	2,058	1969–1988
15	Nobuyuki Hoshino (L)	2,041	1984–1999
16	Hiromu Matsuoka (R)	2,008	1968–1985

See also

• List of Major League Baseball career strikeout leaders