Shoichi Ino

Shoichi Ino (井納 翔一)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 2", Weight 200 lb.

• School Jobu University
• High School Kisarazu Chuo High School

• Born May 1, 1986 in Koto, Tokyo Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Shoichi Ino made three All-Star teams his first five seasons in Nippon Pro Baseball.

Ino pitched for NTT East in the industrial leagues after college. He was picked by the Yokohama BayStars in the 3rd round of the 2012 NPB draft; they had taken Hiroyuki Shirasaki and Kazuki Mishima the first two rounds. He saw regular action as a rookie, going 5-7 with a 5.34 ERA in 2013.

Ino made the Central League team for the 2014 NPB All-Star Games. In Game 1, he relieved Yudai Ono in the 6th with a 4-0 lead over the Pacific League. He struck out Keiji Obiki, walked Yuki Yanagita, got Kazuya Fujita to fly out, walked Shota Ono then retired Sho Nakata on a grounder. In the 7th, now with a 6-0 lead, he gave up a Dai-Kang Yang double and walked Ginji Akaminai but recovered to get Yoshio Itoi and Wily Mo Pena out (Pena fanning). Ryuji Ichioka relieved at that point and the CL wound up with shutout win. He finished the 2014 season at 11-9, 4.01. He tied Shintaro Fujinami and Kenta Maeda for 5th in the CL in wins and also tied for 5th in losses.

The right-hander pitched for Japan in the 2014 Nichi-Bei Series when they beat the MLB All-Stars, 3 games to 2. In the opener, he relieved Takahiro Matsuba with a 6-3 lead in the 7th and allowed one run in two innings (Robinson Cano driving in Ben Zobrist before Tomomi Takahashi finished the win. In game 4, he took over for Shohei Otani in the 5th with a 2-0 deficit and gave up one run in three despite five hits. Kazuhisa Makita took over in what would be a 3-1 loss.

He also pitched for Japan in the 2015 series against Team Europe. Relieving Matsuba with a 5-0 deficit in the 4th, he struck out 4 of 7 batters, allowing only a Blake Ochoa single, in what would be a rough 6-2 defeat for Japan; Shota Takeda took over for him. While he did not make the All-Star team during 2015, his ERA improved and he finished 5-8, 3.27 for the last-place BayStars.

The Tokyo native got into 2016 NPB All-Star Game 2 in the 5th, relieving Yuta Iwasada with a 3-0 lead. He immediately ran into trouble, giving up homers to Otani and Hideto Asamura sandwiched between a Brandon Laird double. He recovered to fan Daichi Suzuki and get Tatsuhiro Tamura on a fly and Shogo Akiyama on a grounder. In the 6th, he retired Takumi Kuriyama on a fly and got both Yanagita and Nakata swinging. Ryo Akiyoshi left, but the 3-0 lead Ino inherited had turned into 3-3; the game ended in a 5-5 tie. For 2016, he was 7-11 with a 3.50 ERA. He tied Randy Messenger and Fujinami for 3rd in the CL in losses.

He pitched better in 2017 NPB All-Star Game 2 than he had the prior year, but took the loss. He relieved Takumi Akiyama in the 5th with a 1-1 tie. Suzuki greeted him with a triple. He retired Tamura and Sosuke Genda but Akiyama doubled in what would be the winning run. Yanagita then flew out. In the 6th, Haruki Nishikawa and Alfredo Despaigne hit back-to-back singles but Ono got Laird to hit into a double play and Takahiro Okada grounded out. Yasuhiro Ogawa came in to pitch the 7th. He finished 2017 at 6-10, 3.84. He tied Iwasada for 4th in the CL in losses and missed the top 10 in ERA by .08 behind Raul Valdes. Yokohama won the pennant for the first time in 19 years thanks to surprising playoff success and advanced to the 2017 Japan Series. He started game 1 but got knocked around by the Softbank Hawks in a loss to Kodai Senga. He relieved in two other games at the Series, finishing with a 9.53 ERA as Yokohama fell in 7. Only Kenjiro Tanaka, his reliever in Game 1, had a higher ERA for the BayStars in the Series.

Ino moved to Yokohama's bullpen in 2018 and was down in the minor leagues for a while. On July 1, he threw the 24th no-hitter in the history of the Eastern League.

His repertoire includes a slider, forkball and splitter.