Motonobu Tanishige

Motonobu Tanishige
Medal record
Representing Japan
Men's Baseball
World Baseball Classic

Motonobu Tanishige
Motonobu Tanishige
	Tanishige with the Chunichi Dragons
	Catcher / Manager
	Batted: Right Threw: Right
NPB debut
	April 11, 1989, for the Yokohama Taiyo Whales
Last NPB appearance
	September 26, 2015, for the Chunichi Dragons
NPB statistics ; (through 2015)
Batting average	.240
Home runs	229
RBI	1040
Teams
	As Player; Yokohama Taiyo Whales/Yokohama BayStars (1989–2001); Chunichi Dragons (2002–2015); As Manager; Chunichi Dragons (2014-2016);
Career highlights and awards
	All Star, 2002; Gold Glove, 2006, 2007;

Motonobu Tanishige (谷繁元信, born December 21, 1970, in Hiroshima) was the former manager for the Chunichi Dragons in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). He was the Dragons' player-manager from 2014 to 2015.^[1]

Through 2015, Tanishige has played 27 seasons in NPB. Making his debut for the Taiyo Whales in 1989 at age 18, he played for the Whales/BayStars franchise for 13 years. Moving to the Dragons in 2002, through 2015 he has played for that franchise for 14 seasons. He has played in five Japan Series, and one World Baseball Classic, in 2006, when Japan won the championship.

Tanishige performed well in the 2004 Japan Series (which the Dragons lost 4-games-to-3 to the Seibu Lions), including hitting his first career grand slam.

In 2015, Tanishige broke the NPB record for games played, passing Katsuya Nomura with 3,018^[2] — he has since extended the record. Tanishige is second on the career strikeout list with 1,838. With more than 200 career home runs, Tanshige is a member of Meikyukai.

After retiring from playing at the end of the 2015 season, Tanishige became full-time manager of the Dragons. After a rocky start to the season followed by a lacklustre continuation following the All-Star break, on August 10, 2016 he was relieved from his duties alongside fielding coach Takahiro Saeki.^[3] He was replaced by head coach, Shigekazu Mori for the remainder of the season. ^[4]

References

^ Graczyk, Wayne. "Tanishige to become rare player-manager for Dragons." 19 October 2013: The Japan Times.
^ "Dragons’ Tanishige plays in NPB record 3,018th game," Japan Times (July 28, 2015).
^ "Tanishige's reign ends with Dragons". The Japan News. 10 August 2016. Retrieved 13 August 2016.
^ "Dragons manager Tanishige ordered to take leave of absence". Japan Times. 10 August 2016. Retrieved 13 August 2016.

External links

Nippon Professional Baseball career statistics from JapaneseBaseball.com
Career statistics from Baseball Reference (Minors)

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[1] Graczyk, Wayne. "Tanishige to become rare player-manager for Dragons." 19 October 2013: The Japan Times.

[2] "Dragons’ Tanishige plays in NPB record 3,018th game," Japan Times (July 28, 2015).

[3] "Tanishige's reign ends with Dragons". The Japan News. 10 August 2016. Retrieved 13 August 2016.

[4] "Dragons manager Tanishige ordered to take leave of absence". Japan Times. 10 August 2016. Retrieved 13 August 2016.

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