With Hanshin’s stockholders’ meeting and interleague play looming, the Iron Man faces a difficult situation
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Infielder Takashi Toritani (36) may be facing a ”mid-June crisis”. In the 41 games played by the Tigers as of May 24, Toritani has only managed 10 hits in 68 at-bats, for a batting average of .147, and only 5 runs batted in. Still, he continues to find his way onto the field, and his streak of continuous games stands at 1,936, leaving 279 games to tie Sachio Kinugasa’s record of 2,215. Despite doubts about Toritani’s ability to reach that milestone, manager Tomoaki Kanemoto continues to play him. But with interleague play beginning soon, and with the Pacific League’s DH system eliminating the need for pinch hitters, how Kanemoto will fit Toritani into the lineup is uncertain. What’s more is that Hankyu-Hanshin Holdings will hold their regular stockholders’ meeting on June 13. With harsh criticism expected from the stockholders, Toritani’s situation seems likely to change drastically in the near future.
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Toritani’s offense continues to be abysmal. As of May 24, the Tigers have played 41 games. Toritani has had 80 plate appearances, with only 10 hits to show for 68 official at-bats. His average sits at .147, with 0 home runs and 5 RBIs. Although his streak of continuous games played remains intact, he is getting few at-bats. If this situation continues until the season’s end, it will mean the streak of continuous games will stand without Toritani reaching the required number of plate appearances — which is a very dubious record to hold.
Naturally many people, both inside and outside the team, are having their say. One former Hanshin player opines: “Toritani’s always been in the starting lineup, so if he gets such a low number of at-bats, he’ll never get better. They converted him to second base, remember, so he’ll definitely improve if they would just put him in the lineup more often.” On the other hand, a different team official says, “watching him play, he just looks sluggish. If you’re a pro, you don’t blame your problems on how your manager is using you — you’ve got to take responsibility for your own improvement. Kanemoto’s playing Toritani out of consideration, so Toritani has to turn that into something more consistent on his own.” Some are even more critical.
May 12’s game against Hiroshima (at Mazda Stadium) was a turning point. Earlier, on May 5, the red-hot Hiroki Uemoto had injured his left leg on a stolen base attempt against Chunichi. The second baseman had a staggering .422 average in 20 games — but the injury, which ended up being an ACL tear, put him out of action for the foreseeable future. Up-and-coming shortstop Kai Ueda was also unavailable due to illness, which created an emergency situation. With the team pressed for available players at second and short, many in the Tigers circle naturally assumed that Toritani would be the starting second baseman.
But on the day of May 12, the Tigers front office, including manager Kanemoto, hastily called up Yutaro Itayama (the sixth-round draft pick in 2015, in only his third year as a pro) from the second squad. Itayama responded in his second at-bat, swatting his first pro home run off of Ohsera in the fifth inning. One person involved, who watched this play out, said: “This seems to be Kanemoto’s way of saying that Toritani is out. No matter who you are, no matter how you look at it, it was shocking that Toritani wasn’t in the starting lineup that day. If you have no intention of using him, you need to talk to him, send him down to the second squad, and let him make his adjustments there. It’d be better to get him back in shape on the farm first, and then bring him back up.”
In other words, for Kanemoto and the rest of the front office, Toritani is now a “non-essential player” at best. One could probably go further and say he has no part at all in their current competitive plans. At the same time, Kanemoto is letting Toritani maintain his streak of continuous games, and shows no sign of removing him from the top squad’s roster. One Hanshin Railways executive said, somewhat ruefully, that “Kanemoto is the one who’s most concerned about Toritani. The coaches are much more critical, but Kanemoto always finds a way to get Toritani into the games.”
However, several developments coming in June are expected to spark a major change in the situation.
The first of these is the interleague schedule, which begins this week. By June 17, the Tigers will have faced Softbank, Seibu, Orix, Lotte, Nippon Ham, and Rakuten, in that order. Of those, the Tigers will play the three series against Seibu, Nippon Ham, and Rakuten at their opponents’ stadiums. In other words: nine games at Pacific League parks, where the DH rule will be in effect.
Thus far, Toritani has mostly been inserted into the lineup late in games, as a pinch hitter in the pitcher’s spot. The front office seems to have no faith in his ability to man second base, which makes it hard to use him to shore up the defense. His lack of speed makes him doubtful as a pinch runner, too. So, Toritani has been relegated to pinch hitter, the idea being that “at least he’s more likely to get a hit than the pitcher.” But with the DH rule, the pitcher won’t be batting — and with Rosario and Haraguchi the favorites for the DH spot, Kanemoto has far less leeway to give Toritani the same special treatment without affecting the outcome of games.
June 1 will mark the start of the first away series for the Tigers, when they face Seibu at Met Life Dome in Tokorozawa. The series against Nippon Ham starts on June 12 at Sapporo Dome, and June 15 finds the Tigers at Rakuten Seimei Park Miyazaki for three games against the Eagles.
And after interleague play starts, the “corporate situation” rises to the surface, too. Let me say first that the following is pure conjecture on my part, but on June 13, Hankyu-Hanshin Holdings will hold their 180th regular meeting of shareholders in Osaka. The gathering is well-known for the shareholders’ relentless questioning about the Tigers. Last year saw demands for the Hankyu side to participate in the team’s management, as well as complaints that the Hanshin Railways cars were painted orange — the color of the Tigers’ rival team, the Giants. Management has responded seriously (?) to these concerns. After all, when Fukudome and Nishioka failed to perform, there was criticism that the team had bought “nothing but bad debt.”
This year, the team’s performance has been up and down since opening day. And although offensive factors like the development problems of younger players and Rosario’s struggles at the plate won’t be ignored, the way in which Toritani has been used, and how he has performed, will almost certainly be a target for criticism. Why? In 2015, the Hanshin organization signed Toritani to a five-year contract at 400 million yen per year. That’s a total of 2 billion yen. That means they will continue to pay him 400 million until the end of the 2019 season. With his current form, the team is certainly not getting what they paid for — and if the current playing situation continues, what will next season look like? Nobody expects him to return to his winning ways.
Such being the case, expect to hear many shareholders asking, “wouldn’t it be better to give up on the streak, and have Toritani readjust on the second squad — to raise his value again for the rest of this year’s games, and as an essential player for next year as well?” Doubts about operational instincts — why was he signed for 5 years and 2 billion yen? — are a concern as well.
So it would seem that a decision may be made about Toritani’s future before the general meeting on June 13. Such a decision would quiet the rowdy shareholders down… These are the whispers one hears floating around the team. Whether or not those whispers are reaching the front office is another story, however.
Apparently, Kanemoto and Toritani have already met several times about how Toritani is going to slot into games. Although this is more conjecture, Kanemoto has almost certainly asked Toritani how he feels about his own performance, and about the record as well. But with interleague play and the general meeting looming, Toritani is quickly running out of options.
– Translated by Jake Dunlap