Hiroyuki Sekine

Hiroyuki Sekine (関根 裕之)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 1", Weight 190 lb.

• School Tohoku Fukushi University
• High School Iwakura High School

• Born December 9, 1971 in Matsudo, Chiba Japan

BR Register page

Biographical Information

Hiroyuki Sekine pitched nine seasons in Nippon Pro Baseball and made one All-Star team.

Sekine was the first-round pick of the Nippon Ham Fighters in the 1993 NPB draft; it would be a good draft for them as they took Tatsuya Ide and Makoto Kaneko with their next two selections. He was 3-4 with a 4.84 ERA as a rookie in 1994 then missed 1995 due to injuries.

Returning to the hill in 1996, the right-hander was 0-1 with a 2.33 ERA in nine games, walking 12 in 19 1/3 IP. He had a 3-6, 4.28 record in 1997. By 1998, he had become a regular member of the Nippon Ham rotation, going 9-7 with a 3.36 ERA. In the 1998 NPB All-Star Game 2, he relieved Shinji Mori in the 7th with a 3-2 Pacific League over the Central League. He allowed a hit and two walks but escaped without a run; Tatsuji Nishimura replaced him. The game would end a 3-3 tie. For the 1998 season, he was among the PL leaders in ERA (5th, between Nishimura and Fumiya Nishiguchi), wins (tied for 8th), IP (160 2/3, 6th, between Kazuhiro Takeda and Hiroshi Takamura), hits allowed (159, 9th, between Nishiguchi and Nobuyuki Hoshino) and homers allowed (21, tied for third with Hideo Koike).

The Chiba native fell to 12-8, 4.34 in 1999. He was 7th in the PL in wins, tied for 9th in losses, allowed the most gopher balls (28, 8 more than Nishiguchi), was 7th with 73 runs allowed (between Satoru Komiyama and Nishiguchi) and tied Hoshino and Koike for 5th with 67 earned runs. He had a 10-6, 4.90 record in 2000, his last full season. He was on the PL leaderboard in wins (tied for 5th with Tomohiro Kuroki and Takashi Ishii), complete games (4, tied for 6th), strikeouts (98, tied for 9th with Tsutomu Iwamoto), innings (137 2/3, 10th, between Hiroki Yamamura and Ishii), hits (142, 9th, between Tomohiro Nagai and Nishiguchi), homers (15, tied for 7th with Shinichi Kato and Yoshinori Tateyama), runs (80, 8th, between Daisuke Matsuzaka and Brady Raggio) and earned runs (earned runs (75, 7th, between Yamamura and Matsuzaka).

In 2001, Sekine was 2-4 with a 3.36 ERA, limited to 11 games by injuries. He only pitched 12 games in 2002 (3-4, 3.94). In 2003, Sekine was 5-5 with a 5.96 ERA and he was released the next year. He had gone 47-45 with a 4.27 ERA in 180 NPB games (124 starts), with four shutouts. In 795 IP, he allowed 789 hits (119 long balls) and 255 walks while fanning 525. He later was batting practice pitcher for the Fighters then was a minor league pitching coach for them in 2010-2011.

Sources

• Old Japan Baseball Daily website
• Michael Eng database
• Japanese Wikipedia