Shunsuke Watanabe

Japanese baseball player

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Baseball player

Shunsuke Watanabe

Watanabe with the Chiba Lotte Marines

Pitcher
Born: (1976-08-27) August 27, 1976 (age 48)
Tochigi, Japan

Bats: Right

Throws: Right

NPB debut
April 25, 2001, for the Chiba Lotte Marines
NPB statistics
(through 2012 season)
Win–loss record| 87–77
Earned run average| 3.64
Strikeouts| 835
Teams

* Chiba Lotte Marines (2001–2013)

Career highlights and awards

* 2× NPB All-Star (2004, 2005)
* 2x Japan Series champion (2005, 2010)
* Asia Series champion (2005)

Medals

Representing  Japan
Men's Baseball
World Baseball Classic
| 2006 San Diego | Team
| 2009 Los Angeles | Team

Shunsuke Watanabe (渡辺 俊介, Watanabe Shunsuke, born August 27, 1976) is a Japanese former professional baseball pitcher.

His submarine pitching form was noted during the 2006 World Baseball Classic.[1]

## Amateur career

[edit]

Watanabe began baseball at age 6, and began throwing underhanded during middle school at the suggestion of his father. Watanabe attracted little attention through high school and college, and joined the Kazusa Magic amateur baseball team in 1999 after graduating from college. He was finally noticed by professional scouts when he was chosen as a member of the 2000 Sydney Olympics Japanese national team, where he marked a win in a game against Italy.

He pitched in the Japanese national amateur baseball tournament in late 2000 and was drafted in the 4th round by the Chiba Lotte Marines that year.

## Professional career

[edit]

Watanabe made his debut in April 2001, starting a game against the Orix BlueWave. He won his first professional game with a complete-game shutout, and ended the season with 2 wins. In 2002, he pitched in 6 games and had a record of 0–3. In 2003, he gave up 8 runs in his first start, and became a part of the starting rotation at the middle of the year, going 9–4 with a 3.66 ERA. He won 12 games the following year, won 15 games in 2005 with a 2.17 ERA. The Marines won their first championship in 31 years in 2005, and Watanabe pitched in the second game of the Japanese championship series against the Hanshin Tigers, giving up 4 hits in a shutout victory.

He was chosen as a member of the World Baseball Classic team in 2006, but pitched poorly during the season, ending up with a 5–11 record, and a 4.35 ERA. He also led the league in hit batsmen (14).

He holds the Japanese record for skipping stones, recorded on a show on Nippon Television. Chiba Lotte Marines manager Bobby Valentine made an appearance on the show as well.

On November 6, 2004 David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox hit a 525-foot home run off Watanabe when the United States Major League Baseball team faced the Nippon Professional Baseball team in the second game of the traditional Japan All-Star Series. This blast by "Big Papi" has been recorded as the longest home run ever hit at the Tokyo Dome.[2]

He was released by Lotte on November 4, 2013. On December 13, Watanabe signed a minor league contract with Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox. He was released by the Red Sox on March 30 and on April 14 signed with the Lancaster Barnstormers of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball.

## Pitching style

[edit]

Watanabe's famous pitching style during a game in 2010

Watanabe was known for having the world's lowest release point, letting go of the ball only about 2 inches above the ground, and his hand sometimes brushes against the ground as he throws. His body is much closer to the ground than other submarine pitchers, and his right knee has bled during games because it skids against the mound. He put a pad on the inside of his uniform around the knee to prevent himself from bleeding. Watanabe's form is truly one of a kind, as there is no other pitcher in the world who throws from the same arm angle. Batters have trouble timing their swings against Watanabe, because his pitches seemed to come in at completely different speeds compared to those of conventional pitchers.

Watanabe relied on his distinct pitching form and timing to get batters out. In addition to changing speeds with his pitches, he sometimes changed the time he took to windup and release the ball. He did not have precise control, but was consistent in the lower part of the strike zone. Watanabe was not known to strike out batters, (only 101 strikeouts in 187 innings in 2005) and relied on forcing batters to hit themselves into outs. His underhanded form required less energy than a conventional pitching form, and he was able to pitch into later innings.

Watanabe threw four main pitches; a fastball, sinker, gyroball, and a slider. Being a submarine pitcher, Watanabe's fastball was slow, sitting in mid to high-70s mph and topping out at low-80s mph, with movements. The sinker was probably his best pitch, as he fooled batters by throwing it at the same speed as his fastball, or sometimes even faster. His slider was about 8–9 mph slower than his fastball, and breaks downward. Watanabe's gyroball was very slow, clocking around 60 mph, somewhat similar to the curveball of Washington Nationals pitcher Liván Hernández (which actually was more like an eephus pitch). He often experimented with the gyroball, changing grips to make it resemble a change-up more than a gyroball. Watanabe's gyroball (thought to be a slow non-breaking curveball) was held with a two-seam grip. Watanabe's control over the gyroball was below average, but he did get looking strikes and groundballs with it.

## See also

[edit]

* World Baseball Classic
* List of Japanese baseball players

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Lefton, Brad (March 16, 2006). "World Baseball Classic: The lowdown on pitching". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on June 4, 2011. Retrieved 2010-01-28.
2. ^ "Ortiz makes U.S. win vs. Japan look 'Natural'". ESPN.com. 2004-11-06. Retrieved 2021-01-18.

## External links

[edit]

* Nippon Professional Baseball career statistics from JapaneseBaseball.com

* Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference (Minors)
* Shunsuke Watanabe Official Site(Japanese)
* Shunsuke Watanabe at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
* [1]
* [2]

* v
* t
* e

Japan roster – 2006 World Baseball Classic champions (1st title)

* 1 Akinori Iwamura
* 2 Michihiro Ogasawara
* 3 Nobuhiko Matsunaka
* 5 Kazuhiro Wada
* 6 Hitoshi Tamura
* 7 Tsuyoshi Nishioka
* 8 Toshiaki Imae
* 9 Tatsuhiko Kinjō
* 10 Shinya Miyamoto
* 11 Naoyuki Shimizu
* 12 Soichi Fujita
* 15 Tomoyuki Kubota
* 17 Kosuke Fukudome
* 18 Daisuke Matsuzaka
* 19 Koji Uehara
* 20 Yasuhiko Yabuta
* 21 Tsuyoshi Wada
* 22 Tomoya Satozaki
* 23 Nori Aoki
* 24 Kyuji Fujikawa
* 25 Takahiro Arai
* 27 Motonobu Tanishige
* 31 Shunsuke Watanabe
* 40 Akinori Otsuka
* 41 Hiroyuki Kobayashi
* 47 Toshiya Sugiuchi
* 51 Ichiro Suzuki
* 52 Munenori Kawasaki
* 59 Ryoji Aikawa
* 61 Hirotoshi Ishii
* 61 Takahiro Mahara

* Manager 89 Sadaharu Oh
* Coach 84 Kazuhiro Takeda
* Coach 85 Hatsuhiko Tsuji
* Coach 86 Yoshitaka Katori
* Coach 87 Yasunori Oshima
* Coach 88 Sumio Hirota

* v
* t
* e

Japan roster – 2009 World Baseball Classic champions (2nd title)

* 1 Kosuke Fukudome
* 2 Kenji Johjima
* 5 Kenta Kurihara
* 6 Hiroyuki Nakajima
* 7 Yasuyuki Kataoka
* 8 Akinori Iwamura
* 9 Michihiro Ogasawara
* 10 Shinnosuke Abe
* 11 Yu Darvish
* 14 Takahiro Mahara
* 15 Masahiro Tanaka
* 16 Hideaki Wakui
* 18 Daisuke Matsuzaka
* 19 Minoru Iwata
* 20 Hisashi Iwakuma
* 22 Kyuji Fujikawa
* 23 Nori Aoki
* 24 Seiichi Uchikawa
* 25 Shuichi Murata
* 26 Tetsuya Utsumi
* 28 Satoshi Komatsu
* 29 Yoshiyuki Ishihara
* 31 Shunsuke Watanabe
* 35 Yoshiyuki Kamei
* 39 Tetsuya Yamaguchi
* 41 Atsunori Inaba
* 47 Toshiya Sugiuchi
* 51 Ichiro Suzuki
* 52 Munenori Kawasaki

* Manager 83 Tatsunori Hara
* Coach 72 Tsutomu Itō
* Coach 71 Hisashi Yamada
* Coach 92 Tsuyoshi Yoda
* Coach 81 Kazunori Shinozuka
* Coach 63 Nobuhiro Takashiro
* Coach 73 Koichi Ogata

* v
* t
* e

Chiba Lotte Marines 2010 Japan Series champions

1 Ikuhiro Kiyota
2 Makoto Imaoka
3 Saburo
6 Tadahito Iguchi
7 Tsuyoshi Nishioka
8 Toshiaki Imae (Japan Series MVP)
9 Kazuya Fukuura
10 Shoitsu Omatsu
11 Yuta Omine
12 Yuji Yoshimi
14 Tomohisa Otani
15 Hiroki Ueno
16 Hisao Heiuchi
17 Yoshihisa Naruse
19 Yuki Karakawa
21 Tatsuya Uchi
22 Tomoya Satozaki
25 Naotaka Takehara
27 Takuya Furuya
28 Tomohisa Nemoto
29 Shingo Ono
30 Yoshihiro Ito
31 Shunsuke Watanabe
32 Shunichi Nemoto
39 Masahiko Tanaka
40 Masato Watanabe
41 Hiroyuki Kobayashi
43 Toshio Saito
44 Hayden Penn
46 Hidetaka Kawagoe
48 Akichika Yamada
49 Yasuhiko Yabuta
52 Kim Tae-kyun
55 Takumi Kobe
58 Takeshi Aono
59 Kei Hosoya
65 Ryusuke Minami
66 Yoshifumi Okada
67 Naoki Matoba
69 Bill Murphy

Manager
78 Norifumi Nishimura

Coaches
Bench 76 Michio Aoyama
Hitting 75 Eiji Kanamori
Infield 72 Seiji Kamikawa
Outfield 73 Kenji Morozumi
Pitching 71 Takashi Nishimoto
Bullpen 79 Yuji Inoue
Catching 74 Kiyoshi Yamanaka
Coach 77 Kenji Yoshitsuru
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