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The story
Hanshin beat DeNA 5-3 in their August 23 matchup, dropping DeNA to a third straight loss.
Closer Kudo’s pitch speed reaching 161-163 km/h (about 100-101 mph) became a huge talking point on 5ch, with comments pouring in like “batters have never seen speed like that.” After the game, debate also heated up over the bullpen management and how Yuasa and Iwasaki were used.
Hanshin 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 5 |5
DeNA 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 |3
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Source: nikkansports.com / Original article here
What people said
Who even is Kudo? That pitch speed is ridiculous, LOL
That's basically radar-gun-breaking speed.
https://ul.h3z.jp/67AFLGX7.jpg
No way anyone hits that.
Even by batters' own accounts, that's a speed they've never seen before.
Top of the 9th, 2 outs.
Pitchers of record
Winning pitcher: Hanshin's Iwasaki (3-3, 11 SV)
Losing pitcher: DeNA's Reynolds (3-1, 10 SV)
Save: Hanshin's Kudo (3-0, 4 SV)
Rare to see them own up to a mistake.
Quit making excuses and go take a bath.
Kinoshita's about what you'd expect — he's always had a high batting average against and just barely holds it together.
Oikawa's about what you'd expect too, he's nowhere near full form yet.
Yuasa's about what you'd expect, and so is Zaki.
Pretty much matches their stats.
feel bad for Haruto, LOL ("kawauso," net slang punning on kawaisou, "poor guy")
Take your complaints to Fujikawa for using Yuasa.
Pinch hitter Kina, LOL — one-run game and he brings in Yuasa, LOL, Iwasaki, LOL
In that spot, was there anyone besides pinch hitter Kina?
I figured it'd be either Fukushima or Kina.
Before you criticize the strategy — there's no bench depth to pinch hit with…
I really do want starters to go at least 6 innings.
With only 5, you're forced to walk a tightrope.
Tonight's bottom of the 8th was exactly that.
He was watching from the bench afterward, so it probably wasn't a serious injury.
In that case, I wish he'd volunteered to push through to the 6th.
Also, he'd better pitch next Sunday against the Giants, LOL
He's already on a protected rotation as it is, and this is a make-or-break stretch for the team.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HQZoUBPbQAEc-rJ?format=jpg
Video
https://x.com/xqx2026/status/2091487722846478413
That collision play was scary.
If it had gone wrong, it could've been a serious neck injury.
Makes you wonder if no other team had their eye on him.
In his rookie year he topped out at 159 km/h but had terrible control.
This year he's at 163 — insane improvement in just one year.
And Fujikawa's more to blame than Yuasa.
If a former catcher works for you, there's a great skipper named Nakatani.
Embarrassing take, niwaka (bandwagon/casual fan).
Kudo would be the closer.
Nah, he throws his forkball a ton —
about 1 in every 4 pitches.
And his batting-average-against and strikeout numbers are incredible.
There are cases where it's not that he wants to use them that way.
If it were Aikawa, maybe, but Fujikawa seems to hold full authority.
Whatever happens, I figure he'll step down next year once Satoteru (Sato Teruaki) is gone.
Honestly I kind of think Nakatani would be fine for real.
Doesn't seem like he'd drag it out, and even if he did, resting core players leads to bad results — so next year's a clean cutoff point.
That's all righties though.
Severino's been great in August — 5 strikeouts, 0 walks, 1 run allowed, 0.75 WHIP over 4 games — but Fujikawa seems to have it in for him, because he barely gets used.
Background and Key Points
The Central League is one of Nippon Professional Baseball’s two circuits, and this matchup pits two of its most storied rivals: the Hanshin Tigers, based at Koshien Stadium and famous for their fervent fanbase, against the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. Kudo’s reported 161-163 km/h (100-101 mph) reading is what anchors the thread — that range sits at the very top of any pitch ever recorded in NPB, on par with the hardest throwers in MLB history, which is why posters kept stressing that no Central League hitter has ever faced anything like it. Notably, Kudo entered NPB through the ikusei (developmental) draft, a secondary draft track for players teams pass over in the regular draft; developmental players earn less and must be converted to a standard NPB contract before they can appear in games, which is why posters found it striking that a pitcher now touching 163 km/h went unclaimed as a rookie topping out at 159.
The thread wasn’t really divided over Kudo’s speed — that drew near-unanimous awe. The actual split was over bullpen management: whether Iwasaki deserved the win given how shaky the setup work from Yuasa and Kinoshita was, and how much blame belongs to manager Fujikawa Kyuji, himself a former star closer, versus front-office-mandated usage patterns.
What outside readers may miss is that raw velocity isn’t the same as dominance — posters noted Kudo leans heavily on a forkball (roughly one in four pitches) rather than pure fastballs, and that his effectiveness owes as much to that secondary pitch as to the radar-gun number driving the hype.
*This article is an excerpt/summary based on the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Baseball] Central League DB 3-5 T [8/23] Hanshin’s winning streak continues, Morishita’s go-ahead RBI hit (4-for-4, 2 RBI), Sato Teruaki 4 hits, DeNA strands 11, 3rd straight loss.”
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