Yoshio Itoi

Itoi with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters

Orix Buffaloes – No. 7

Outfielder

Born: July 31, 1981

Bats: Left

Throws: Right

debut

March 27, 2007, for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters

NPB statistics
(through 2015)

Batting average

.300

Home runs

108

Runs batted in

455

Teams

Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters (2004–2012)
Orix Buffaloes (2013–present)

Yoshio Itoi (糸井嘉男, Itoi Yoshio, born July 31, 1981 in Yosano, Kyoto, Japan) is a Japanese professional baseball player for the Orix Buffaloes. Itoi bats left-hitter and throws right-handed. He played for team Japan in WBC 2013, and hit clean-up for Japan in games against Brazil (4th batter) and China (5th batter).

Early life

Itoi was a pitcher during his time as a student, and was the ace pitcher for Kinki University during his 4th year, where he finished the spring league with a 5-0 record with 2 shutouts, and won the MVP and Best Pitcher award. He was also included in the Best Nine. He finished his university career with a 9-1 record.

Nippon Ham Fighters

Itoi was drafted into the Fighters in the fall of 2003, and was considered a power pitcher, being able to pitch 151 km/h (94 mph) fastball but has control problems and were unable to muster up decent breaking balls. He was also marred with injury and spent 2 years in the ni-gun (Japanese equivalent of the minor league).

Although Itoi had problems developing as a good pitcher in the pros, his outstanding batting sense, running speed (50m in 5 seconds), and strong throwing arm prompted Fighters GM Shigeru Takada to convert him into an outfielder. Just 5 months after converting into an outfielder, Itoi won the Eastern League's Monthly MVP award, hitting .397 in September 2006.

Itoi collected his first hit and stolen base in Ichigun level in the 2007 season, but spent most time in Niggun, having only played 7 games at Ichigun level. In 2008, Itoi was the Opening Day's starting left fielder, but injury again put him out of action. He bounced back near the end of the season, however, and hit his first home run soon after. He was the lead off batter for Fighters during that year's Climax Series, and was defensively outstanding.

In 2009, Itoi replaced Hichori Morimoto as Fighter's everyday starting center field. He moved up the batting order as the season progress, hitting in the two-hole and even as the third batter when Atsunori Inaba was absent. Itoi won the Monthly MVP award in June, and was selected for the first time to play in the All Star Game. He ended the year hitting .306 with 15 home runs, 24 stolen bases, and a league high 40 doubles, and won his first Golden Glove award.

Itoi continued to be an integral part of the Fighters, winning his second Golden Glove in 2010 and ended the year hitting .309 with 15 home runs and 26 stolen bases.

After the NPB switched the official game ball into the pitcher friendly ball that lead to a league-wide fall in batting statistics, Itoi continued to flourish in the 2011 season, hitting .319 with 11 home runs and 31 stolen bases, and a league high .411 OBP (the only player with OBP of more than .400 that year in whole of NPB) mainly as the third batter. He won his third straight Golden Glove that year.

In 2012, Itoi switched from center field to right field as Taiwanese Dai-Kang Yang was slotted into center field. Itoi was not in his best during the first half of the season, hitting .289 with 2 home runs. He started to pick up in the second half of the season, hitting .380 with 3 home runs in September to win the Monthly MVP award. He ended the year with .304 batting average, 9 homers, 22 stolen base, and second straight year of league high .404 OBP, also winning his fourth Golden Glove. Itoi expressed interest at the end of the season to be posted to the Major Leagues, but was instead traded to the Orix Buffaloes in a 5 player deal on January 25, 2013.

Orix Buffaloes

Itoi was involved in a surprising 5 player trade at the end of the 2012 season, which saw him moving to Pacific League rivals Orix Buffaloes. He hit a homer against his former club Fighters on 11 May 2013 to join the ranks of players to have hit at least a home run against each NPB team.

World Baseball Classic 2013

Itoi was selected to play for Team Japan in the 2013 WBC, and started all 3 games as right fielder in the first pool round,batting cleanup in the first 2 games. He is amongst the most consistent batters for Team Japan, getting a hit in each game. During the second pool round, Itoi replaced the ineffective Hisayoshi Chono in center field and continued his batting consistency, hitting a double against Chinese Taipei (Also Team Japan's only second extra base hit up until that moment, with the other also provided by Itoi) and hit a 3-run home run in the mulling of Netherlands. In the semifinal round, however, they lost to upstart Puerto Rico 3-1, thus preventing the team from advancing to the Championship round.

References

External links

Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference (Minors)
NPB.com

Japan 2013 World Baseball Classic roster

1 Takashi Toritani 2 Ryoji Aikawa 3 Hirokazu Ibata 5 Nobuhiro Matsuda 6 Hayato Sakamoto 7 Kazuo Matsui 9 Yoshio Itoi 10 Shinnosuke Abe 11 Hideaki Wakui 13 Sho Nakata 14 Atsushi Nohmi 15 Hirokazu Sawamura 16 Takeru Imamura 17 Masahiro Tanaka 18 Toshiya Sugiuchi 20 Kenta Maeda 21 Masahiko Morifuku 24 Seiichi Uchikawa 26 Tetsuya Utsumi 27 Ginjiro Sumitani 28 Kenji Otonari 34 Hisayoshi Chōno 35 Kazuhisa Makita 41 Atsunori Inaba 46 Yuichi Honda 47 Tetsuya Yamaguchi 50 Tadashi Settsu 61 Katsuya Kakunaka

Manager Koji Yamamoto Coach Osamu Higashio Coach Masataka Nashida Coach Koichi Ogata Coach Nobuhiro Takashiro Coach Kazuyoshi Tatsunami Coach Tsuyoshi Yoda

Orix Buffaloes current roster

Active roster	1 Hiroyuki Nakajima 2 Takuya Hara 3 Ryoichi Adachi 4 Brent Morel 6 Yūma Mune 7 Yoshio Itoi 8 Shunta 10 Kohji Ohshiro 11 Takahiro Matsuba 12 Kohdai Sano 13 Shunichi Satoh 14 Kazumasa Yoshida 15 Tatsuya Satoh 16 Yoshihisa Hirano 17 Sachiya Yamasaki 18 Mamoru Kishida 19 Chihiro Kaneko 20 Daisuke Kondoh 21 Yuki Nishi 22 Hikaru Ito 23 Torai Fushimi 24 Yūki Miyazaki 25 Pat Misch 26 Daiki Tohmei 27 Daiki Aoyama 28 Satoshi Komatsu 29 Brian Bogusevic 30 Kyohei Iwasaki 31 Eiichi Koyano 32 Brandon Dickson 33 Takuya Shimada 34 Masataka Yoshida 35 Motoki Higa 36 Ban Takagi 37 Kenya Wakatsuki 38 Shūhei Kojima 39 Masahiro Nishino 40 Kohei Suzuki 42 Tony Blanco 43 Seiichi Sakayori 45 Toshio Saitoh 46 Takayoshi Kawabata 47 Tomoyuki Kaida 48 Kohki Saitoh 49 Hirokazu Shiranita 50 Yūya Oda 52 Erik Cordier 53 Yūto Yoshida 54 Yūki Tsutsumi 55 T-Okada 56 Kengo Takeda 57 Nobuyoshi Yamada 58 Ryuta Kadoya 59 Shohei Tsukahara 60 Ken Akama 61 Kyo Okunami 62 Katsuki Yamazaki 63 Issei Nakamura 64 Shota Morimoto 65 Kazuki Kondoh 66 Ryo Yoshida 67 Sena Satoh 68 Yū Suzuki 69 Satoshi Ohyama 97 Daisuke Tanaka 99 Yutaro Sugimoto 120 Takayuki Tsukada (Trainee) 121 Kosuke Akamatsu (Trainee) 124 Satoshi Sonobe (Trainee) 125 Ryo Toda (Trainee)

Coaching staff	Manager 88 Junichi Fukura

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