Haruhiro Hamaguchi

Haruhiro Hamaguchi (濵口 遥大)

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 5' 8", Weight 176 lb.
• School Kanagawa University
• High School Miyaki High School

• Born March 16, 1995 in Kiyama, Saga Japan

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Biographical Information

Haruhiro Hamaguchi is a pitcher who made his debut with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars of Nippon Pro Baseball's Central League in 2017. He was drafted by the BayStarsin the first round of 2016 NPB draft. Hamaguchi had an excellent rookie season, going 10-6, 3.57 in 22 starts for the team that won the Central League pennant. He did lead the league with 69 walks in 123 2/3 innings, but his 136 strikeouts placed his 5th, just behind teammate Shota Imanaga. He finished third in the voting for the 2017 Central League Rookie of the Year Award (Yota Kyoda was the winner). Yokohama faced the Softbank Hawks, the perennial power from the rival Pacific League, in the 2017 Japan Series. Softbank won the series, four games to two, but Hamaguchi was one of Yokohama's few heroes: he started Game 4 on November 1st with his team facing elimination and turned in a masterful performance, keeping his powerful opponents hitless for 7 1/3 innings becoming only the fourth pitcher in Japan Series history to turn in such a performance. Daisuke Yamai had famously pitched the first eight innings of a combined perfect game for the Chunichi Dragons on the same day exactly ten years earlier, and Minoru Murayama (in 1962) and Shinji Sasaoka (in 1991) had done the same in earlier series. He left with a 3-0 lead after he giving up a pair of singles in the 8th and relievers Spencer Patton and Yasuaki Yamasaki completed the 6-0 win.

Hamaguchi was unable to reproduce the success of his rookie season in following years, going 4-5, 3.90 in 2018 and 6-5, 3.17 in 2019. In fact, he had appeared in at least a few games in the minor league Eastern League in each of his six professional seasons as of the end of 2022, That year, he had his highest win total since his rookie year, going 8-7, 3.36 for the BayStars.

He was part of the Japanese team that took part in the 2018 Nichi-Bei Series against MLB All-Stars. He had previously played for Japan at the 2014 Haarlem Baseball Week and in the 2015 Universiade, and was on a Japanese collegiate team that faced their U.S. counterparts in a series in the summer of 2016. He was selected by Yokohama in the first round of the 2016 NPB Draft.