Hiroki Yamada (baseball)

Hiroki Yamada (山田 大樹, born July 30, 1988) is a Japanese left-handed pitcher who plays for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of the Nippon Professional Baseball.

Yamada played his first season in the NPB with the Hawks going 4-4 and a 4.60 ERA, striking out 44 over 59 innings.^[1] At the end of the season he joined the Brisbane Bandits inaugural roster and was reported to try to learn a slow curve during the season.^[2]

Throughout the 2010-11 Australian Baseball League season, Yamada had been impressive for the Bandits with a 2-1, 3.00 ERA record, including 30 strikeouts over as many innings until in his last game against the Melbourne Aces where he let in 8 earned runs over 3 innings at the very batter friendly Royal Melbourne Showgrounds, blowing out his ERA to 4.91.^[3]

Yamada pitched his first shutout for the Hawks on May 20, 2011 over the Hanshin Tigers, letting in only 4 hits over 9 innings of work. He finished the 2011 regular season 7-7 with a 2.85 ERA. In the 2011 postseason, Hiroki picked up the win in Game 5 of the Japan Series, throwing 6 shutout innings. The Hawks would go on to win the Series against the Chunichi Dragons 4-3.

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