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The story
Hanshin Tigers pitcher Riito Ihara has apologized through the club after allegations surfaced that he assaulted a woman in her 20s, and it’s been confirmed he will train with the farm team. Since he’s a starting lefty already sitting on 4 wins this season, the thread saw a flurry of comments criticizing the leniency of the punishment, comparing it to the club’s past scandals, and pointing out how often these incidents involve drinking.
[Hanshin] Riito Ihara apologizes through the club, “I offer my deepest apologies” — farm-team assignment decided following assault allegation reports; the rotation lefty has 4 wins this season too
Hanshin Tigers pitcher Riito Ihara (26), whose assault allegations were reported by a weekly magazine the previous day on the 19th, released a statement through the club on the 20th.
“I sincerely apologize for the worry and disturbance this has caused our fans and so many others.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
This is Abe Shinnosuke-level (referencing the Giants manager's own past scandal).
He wasn't arrested, so he's in the clear.
His 'corporate training' was at NTT West (his old company-league team).
Giants: Domestic violence
BayStars: Hitman
Swallows: Bat-throwing
Carp: Zombie
Dragons: Weak
The Central League should just disband at this point.
'Weak' lol
Osuna's the worst offender by far.
It's wild he's still allowed to keep playing.
I feel like there was some article this year or last about a 'took her home' incident or something.
Though whether that counts as 'negative' is debatable.
Whatever happened with the Shimoyanagi Tsuyoshi Instagram hijacking incident?
Or maybe he just didn't learn anything at NTT.
It's Hanshin, after all.
The place is crawling with sugar daddies (wealthy patrons who dote on players).
He'll definitely be back once things blow over — baseball really is soft on criminals.
Take a page from Abe Shin's book.
Abe will probably come back too once things cool down.
He's actually in his second year — 8 appearances so far this season, 4 wins, 2 losses, 3.25 ERA.
Does Abe Shinnosuke's sin disappear too if he becomes farm-team manager?
He's probably just going to drown his frustration in alcohol.
Drinking at home, that is.
If he were an average Joe, he'd be the type to pass out drunk in the middle of the road and get run over.
The players' union might push back on how complaints get handled, so the team has to verify the facts first for this kind of thing,
which tends to make their response lag behind.
You never hear good stories about baseball guys and the nightlife scene.
Can't be helped — at a popular team, even if a guy's talent and stats are mediocre,
people flock around fawning over him.
It's a job, after all — as long as he's wearing that uniform,
he's basically an accessory for the flatterers,
a trophy for them to show off.
or did he just snap on his own without any provocation?
Being drunk is different from being sober, you know.
There really are people who flip a switch over words that wouldn't normally set them off once alcohol's involved.
It's common for onlookers to think 'that's what set him off?'
It said he mistakenly thought a woman was ignoring him and blew up over it.
Background and Key Points
Riito Ihara’s case sits inside a well-worn Japanese pro-baseball pattern: a player is accused of misconduct by a weekly tabloid (here, a shūkanshi report), the club issues a written apology on his behalf rather than the player facing media directly, and punishment is an “ni-gun” (farm/minor-league) assignment rather than suspension or release. This is softer than it sounds to Western readers — Japan’s ni-gun system is a full parallel league (Hanshin’s is based in Nishinomiya), so being sent down isn’t exile from baseball, just off the top roster while the club “verifies facts,” as one poster noted, partly to manage union process. Ihara, 26, a University 2nd or corporate-league product (Osaka University of Commerce, then NTT West’s shakaijin/industrial-league team — a common pro-baseball entry route), is in his second pro year and already a rotation arm with 4 wins, which is precisely why posters expect this to blow over: an effective young starter is asset the team won’t discard.
The thread’s real fault line isn’t whether Ihara did wrong — nobody defends the act — but whether “training with the farm team” constitutes actual accountability, with repeated comparisons to Kyojin manager Shinnosuke Abe’s own past scandal and a runthrough of other Central League teams’ recent incidents (violence, an alleged hit-and-run, bat-throwing, an Instagram hack) framed as evidence the whole league treats these episodes as PR management rather than discipline.
What outsiders likely miss: no arrest has been made, which under Japanese practice is why the club can avoid harsher sanctions — commentators explicitly note “not arrested = in the clear” as the operative legal threshold, distinct from actual guilt or a Nippon Professional Baseball league-office penalty, which hasn’t been reported here.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt/summary of the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Baseball] Hanshin’s Riito Ihara Apologizes, “I Offer My Deepest Apologies” — Farm-Team Assignment Decided Amid Assault Allegations Involving Woman in Her 20s.”
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