30 shots for 5 consecutive years, the first right-handed hitter in the team
A giant who missed the championship for the second year in a row. He had a difficult season in both pitching and hitting, and when it ended, he sank to the B class for the first time in five years.
The next season is about to demand a counterattack, but there was no noticeable movement this off. There were no acquisitions of players who exercised FA rights, and there were various reports of foreign players, but only two pitchers, Tyler Beedy and Yoander Mendez, were officially announced.
If there are new players nominated at the draft meeting in October and new foreign players to be acquired in the future, there may be an increase, but the core is the current force. We are waiting for the encouragement of the regular team and the rise of new power.
In the batting lineup, expectations are high for Kazuma Okamoto, who took over as captain after Hayato Sakamoto.
Okamoto was assigned to No. 4 from the start of the season, but after the Chunichi match on August 11, he handed over the position to Sho Nakata and was demoted to No. 6. He was promoted to No. 5 in the Hanshin match on August 20, but did not return to No. 4 until the end.
There is no doubt that it was a disappointing season for Okamoto, but in the end he played 140 games and recorded 30 home runs for the fifth consecutive year. 252 batting average (520-131) with 30 home runs and 82 RBIs.
He is the third giant to hit 30 home runs for 5 consecutive years, following Sadaharu Oh (19 consecutive years) and Hideki Matsui (7 consecutive years). It was a record that neither Shigeo Nagashima, the honorary director for life nor Tatsunori Hara, could achieve, and was the first right-handed hitter in the team.
Next season, he will aim to hit more than 30 home runs for the sixth consecutive year, but this will be a big record not only for the giants but also in the long history of the baseball world. Only eight players have hit 30 or more home runs for six consecutive years. It is exactly the area of legends.
The Wall Between “5 Years” and “6 Years”
In addition to the above-mentioned Wang and Matsui, Koji Akiyama (ninth consecutive year), Koji Yamamoto (eighth consecutive year), Katsuya Nomura (seventh consecutive year), Katsuo Osugi ( 6 years in a row), Tyrone Woods (6 years in a row), and Michihiro Ogasawara (6 years in a row).
Of these eight players, all seven, except for Woods, who played only six years in Japan, achieved 2,000 hits. He has entered the world of famous baseball.
On the other hand, if you look at the players who stopped at 30 home runs for five consecutive years, Clarence Jones, Koichi Tabuchi, Takahiro Ikeyama, Norihiro Nakamura, and Roberto Petagine. Of these, only Nakamura achieved 2,000 hits. Although there is only a one-year difference between five consecutive years and six consecutive years, it can be seen that players who break the wall of “six consecutive years” have a considerably higher chance of reaching the world of famous baseball in the future.
Will Okamoto be able to break through the wall and move forward? If he can demonstrate his strength as the 4th hitter in all games from the opening, he will be able to clear his 30th home run as a matter of course. At the same time, it is also an indispensable condition for the giants to regain V.
In the 2022 season, the overwhelming numbers of Yakult Munetaka Murakami stood out, but Okamoto also has a track record of winning double crowns last year and the year before last, home runs and RBIs. What kind of success will you show as the captain with this year’s frustration as sustenance? I would like to pay a lot of attention to Kazuma Okamoto, who is in his ninth year.
Text＝BASEBALL KING Editorial Department
