Yoshihisa Naruse

Yoshihisa Naruse (成瀬 善久)

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 5' 11", Weight 190 lb.

• High School Yokohama High School

• Born October 13, 1985 in Oyama, Tochigi Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Yoshihisa Naruse had the best ERA in Nippon Pro Baseball in 2007.

Naruse was a 6th-round draft pick of the Chiba Lotte Marines in the 2004 NPB draft. He reached the Marines' top club in 2006, going 5-5 with a 3.45 ERA in 13 games. Becoming a regular member of the rotation in 2007, he dominated, going 16-1 with a 1.82 ERA. In 173 1/3 innings, he allowed 27 walks and 132 hits while fanning 138. He led the Pacific League in ERA, mere percentage points ahead of Yu Darvish. Naruse was second to Hideaki Wakui in wins, led the league with 4 shutouts, was 4th with 6 complete games and 8th in strikeouts. He lost the Best Nine at pitcher to Darvish.

Naruse was a surprise starter for game two of the 2007 Asian Championship, replacing Darvish, the previously announced starter; both teams broke their gentleman's agreement not to change the announced rotation. He had an unimpressive outing in a 4-3 win over South Korea. Young-min Ko homered off of Naruse in the first and in the 4th, Taek-keun Lee doubled in another. Naruse was promptly yanked in favor of Kenshin Kawakami, who would get the win.

Naruse set NPB All-Star Game records for most hits allowed (11) and runs allowed (8) in the second All-Star Game of 2008, taking a beating from Central League hitters. A few weeks later, he was in the 2008 Olympics and did excellently, allowing no runs in 12 innings, allowing only 5 hits and 3 walks while striking out 19. Naruse allowed just 2 hits and fanned 7 in a 1-0 win over Team Canada, which was loaded with former major leaguers and top prospects. He did allow two inherited runners to score in the 4-2 loss to Cuba, allowing a single to Alfredo Despaigne to plate the two runners left behind by Yu Darvish; Darvish took the loss while Naruse settled down from there and again outperformed his more famous PL counterpart. His 13 strikeouts in the round-robin were one behind leader Chris Begg.

Sources

• IBAF site
• Japan Baseball Daily by Gary Garland
• Japanesebaseball.com by Michael Westbay
• Japanese Wikipedia entry
• 2008 Olympics