From our other sites
The story
DeNA’s Shintaro Fujinami made his first appearance in a month against the Yomiuri Giants on August 20, but the outing fell apart: he lasted only into the 3rd inning, giving up 4 hits and 3 runs before being pulled, and his demotion to the minors soon followed. On 5ch, opinions clashed head-on over the cause of his control problems — some blame lingering damage from being overworked under manager Tomoaki Kanemoto during his Hanshin days, when he was forced to throw over 160 pitches in a game, while others say it simply comes down to a lack of ability.
DeNA’s Shintaro Fujinami falls apart in first start in a month… heading to the minors. Is he now at risk of being “left out of next season’s plans”?
In a game where the team was going for a series sweep, it turned into a betrayal on the mound. DeNA’s Shintaro Fujinami was knocked out on August 20, 2026 against the Giants after just 2⅓ innings, giving up 4 hits and 3 runs — his shortest outing of the season. He also struggled with his ongoing control issues, walking 4 batters.
■ “Right now, Fujinami’s control isn’t the only unstable thing…”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Makes you wonder — what if he'd gotten one of the Giants' miracle-worker coaches
That "miracle-worker" coach
was actually Hanshin's pitching coach back when Fujinami was there
Have him throw 300 pitches in the bullpen
Last resort
Wasn't he already put through something close to that back in his Hanshin days?
Don't know about that, just saying do it now
You think his control problems just started recently or something?
More like he's neck-deep in the water by now
He had a career path similar to Matsuzaka and Tanaka going back to high school, and year 4 as a pro is when accumulated fatigue tends to tank a guy's numbers
But Kanemoto threw a tantrum and pushed him too hard anyway, and that's what finished him
Kanemoto had become a washed-up player, and Toritani used to bail him out by shifting position for him
Then once Kanemoto became manager, when Toritani made an error he flew into a rage
and after that, when the team gave up a run, he kicked over a chair
https://www.sanspo.com/article/20160518-4BZJUFP7YJNMLF5KI7ACSUFHXI/
In his final year, with the team in last place, fans outside the hotel shouted
"Kanemoto, quit!" and he lost it at them
https://youtu.be/eVNz9pvtNo0
Guy's got a hair-trigger temper
Nah, that's not it
Year 4 is just when the savings built up from his brutal high school training finally ran out
In his case, isn't it just that he's got too much on his mind to focus on the game?
though the diehard "Are" fans (Hanshin fans, after the team's 2023 pennant code-word) will show up to deny it
Kanemoto's the one who broke him mentally and delivered the finishing blow, but the shoulder and back injuries and the aimless mechanics overhauls that followed are on the coaching staff and on Fujinami himself
That says it all
His stats improved every year through his third pro season
Same pattern as Matsuzaka and Tanaka
Did you actually look at his third-year stats?
He was pushed hard all season despite not being at full strength from accumulated fatigue
He threw the second-most pitches in the Central League that season
Only Messenger threw more, so Fujinami led all Japanese pitchers
See, this is exactly the kind of thing the "Are" fans show up to deny
And so what, honestly
He kept pitching, so he's not "broken"
It's a technical issue
You just don't get the concept of pitcher wear and tear
Even if it were a technical issue, all he did was decline through Kanemoto's three years
Kanemoto's to blame, he bears the responsibility
2016: 169 innings
2017: 59 innings
2018: 71 innings
So under the Kanemoto regime he barely pitched at all by the end
He fell off on his own
It'd be a different story if they'd kept in mind that, following the Matsuzaka/Tanaka pattern, fatigue might tank his numbers
Instead they told him to go win 19 games — expectations were way too high
"Barely pitched" just means he wasn't good enough to use in the majors anymore
That's how far he'd fallen
Blaming Kanemoto for him never recovering after that is ridiculous
It's a lack of ability
"Lack of ability"? He improved steadily through his third pro year, all the way up to Sawamura Award contention
By that logic, was Chunichi's Asao's short career due to lack of ability, or just overconfidence?
He just never got his mechanics back, right?
Blaming that on someone else makes no sense
Did someone force a mechanics overhaul on him? Never heard that
No matter how much you insist, it doesn't change the fact that he broke Fujinami and the team ended up in last place
He didn't "break" him
Sometimes a subtle mechanical glitch just never gets fixed
Look at Chunichi's Takahashi, he fell apart too
Especially common with players straight out of high school
Apparently, compared to his days at Osaka Toin, pro baseball training was easy for Fujinami
Takahashi's just having an off year, there's a good chance he bounces back next year and beyond
Same goes for Fujinami then
People kept saying it was just a minor glitch since he was still hitting 150+ km/h
He even had an MLB contract on the table
Fujinami could've bounced back too if he hadn't been overworked in year four
The fact he hasn't performed well since is proof he got broken
If anything, his velocity kept going up though
He's been wild since his Hanshin days
Background and Key Points
Shintaro Fujinami was once considered one of Japan’s premier pitching prospects, a hard-throwing right-hander out of Osaka Toin High School who joined the Hanshin Tigers in 2013 and, by his third pro season, was in Sawamura Award contention (Japan’s equivalent of the Cy Young). Under manager Tomoaki Kanemoto, Fujinami was pushed to a 161-pitch outing and led all Japanese-born pitchers in innings that year; his performance collapsed almost immediately afterward, and by 2018 he had been reduced to a fringe roster arm. He later signed an MLB contract, pitching for the Orioles and Athletics before returning to NPB with DeNA. That history is what makes his August 20, 2026 disaster start against the Yomiuri Giants — pulled after 2⅓ innings, four walks, three runs — read as a recurring pattern rather than an isolated bad night.
The thread split cleanly on causation: one camp treats the 161-pitch game and the Matsuzaka/Tanaka-style “fourth-year fatigue” pattern as the root cause, with Kanemoto’s temper (documented incidents of him throwing chairs and berating fans) cited as corroborating evidence of poor man-management; the other camp points to hard innings/workload data showing Fujinami actually pitched very little under Kanemoto afterward (59 and 71 innings), arguing this proves talent erosion rather than abuse, and that his velocity has stayed strong for years, meaning it’s a mechanical or “lack of ability” issue, not physical breakdown.
What neither side raises: Fujinami’s control problems predate the Kanemoto-era workload entirely — he was already known for wildness in high school and his rookie years — meaning both “overwork” and “pure decline” framings may be overstating a fixable single cause for what has always been an inconsistent delivery.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geisports Sokuho+) thread “[Baseball] DeNA’s Shintaro Fujinami falls apart in first start in a month… demoted to minors, control issues persist and fastball velocity drops. Is he now at risk of being “left out of next season’s plans”?“
Leave a Reply