Go Matsumoto (Nippon-Ham Fighters), who has been a professional at Teikyo High School for 11 years, is running the Pacific League Batman race by himself. I would like to find out why this late-blooming top hitter, Matsumoto, suddenly awakened this season.
Nippon-Ham Fighter Go Matsumoto running alone in the Pacific League top hitter race
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Even though he was in the 10th place in 2017 …
When I think of joining Nippon-Ham from Teikyo, I think of Kenshi Sugiya, who calls himself “Suginor.” Matsumoto is Sugiya’s three-year junior. He hit 33 home runs in high school and participated in Koshien in the summer of 3rd year, and in the first round, he released the final timely from Shohei Ohtani (currently Angels), a second-year student at Hanamaki Higashi High School.
In 2011, he joined Nippon-Ham with a high evaluation of 2nd place in the draft. By the way, the 1st place in the draft of Nippon-Ham this year was Tomoyuki Sugano of Tokai University (refusal to join the team → 1st place in the giant draft in 2012).
Matsumoto was a shortstop professional, but he turned to an outfielder due to difficulties in defense such as two missteps of the season in the Eastern League.
In 2017, his sixth year as a professional player, he made progress by hitting two home runs from Kodai Senga (Softbank), and played in 115 games with a batting average of .274 and entered the top 10 batting (5 home runs, 33 RBIs). , 6 stolen bases). However, after the following year, no results were left, and Haruki Nishikawa (currently Rakuten), Taishi Ota (currently DeNA), and Kensuke Kondoh will be in the dust.
Under the new coach Tsuyoshi Shinjo “BIGBOSS” this season, Nishikawa and Daejeon left the team, and when they increased their participation opportunities, they made a breakthrough again. In the Pacific League, where “high throws and low hits” are remarkable, the batting average is .390 (results are as of May 27, the same applies below) and the number is outstanding. Moreover, stolen base 14 is also a top tie.
So far, the top hitter and stolen base W award have been Yoshinori Hirose (Batting average .366, 72 stolen base) in 1964, Makoto Sasaki (Daie / batting average .322, 40 stolen base) in 1992, and Ichiro (Orix) in 1995. / Batting average .342, 49 stolen bases) only 3 people. All of them are famous players in the history of professional baseball, and it will be significant if Matsumoto achieves them.
Here, I would like to see the players who have won the titles of the major hitting divisions (batting average, RBI, home run) for the first time since 2001.
