Ace Shoyuki Togo’s poor performance and the burden on relievers… “Abe Giants” pitching staff also saw a “fatal difference with Hanshin”.

Last season, in Shinnosuke Abe’s first year as manager, the Giants won the Central League championship for the first time in four years, only to lose the Climax Series to DeNA.

Burning for revenge, manager Abe made the largest-ever investment of 7 billion yen in baseball history to strengthen the relief corps, and he also planned to fix the regular catcher, which had been a long-held dream. However, the plan went awry. However, the Giants found themselves in third place in the league, about 15 games behind Hanshin led by manager Kyuji Fujikawa (45) (figures as of September 29).

What is this difference? We analyzed the “fatal weakness” of Abe’s Giants.

Part I: Why were the Abe Giants so weak? Fatal Weaknesses of the Top Contender for the Championship

Difference in the care of pitchers

Let us turn our attention to the pitching staff. The Hanshin’s ironclad pitching staff’s defense ratio is a whopping 2.22, but the Giants’ defense ratio is 2.96, fourth in the league, and the number of runs scored is about 100 more than the Hanshin’s. The main reason for this is the ace’s poor performance.

The main reason for this is the ace’s poor performance. Last season, Shoyuki Togo (25) won 12 games with a 1.95 earned-run average, but this season he has only won seven games with a 4.25 earned-run average. He has been throwing too many pitches, no matter how you look at it,” said a source close to the team.

Togo threw 12,747 pitches between 2008 and 2012, which was about 1,000 more than the second place pitcher and ranked first by a wide margin among the 12 teams. This figure does not include international tournaments such as the WBC, so the actual number of pitches thrown is much higher. Manager Abe is not solely responsible for this, though. ……”

Togo experienced the humiliation of being dropped from the farm in April and June of this year. He has had time to rethink his pitching.

For a forkball pitcher like Togo, a loss of physical sharpness due to fatigue is fatal. That is why it is important for him to take time off voluntarily, but he is a man with a strong sense of responsibility. He was trying to find a chance to revive himself through a process of trial and error. Yasuo Kubo, 67, a traveling pitching coach who is known as the “magic coach,” and Masahiro Tanaka, 36, a new member of the second team, gave him advice, but Togo listened to all of their opinions, which made him more confused…. …” (ibid.)

Togo’s poor performance, combined with the injury to Foster Griffin (30), who was one of the starters in the rotation, naturally placed a heavy burden on the relievers.

Kota Nakagawa (31) has made 62 appearances, Eito Tanaka (26) and Taisei (26) have made 61 appearances, and Martinez and Taiga Funasako (28) have made 57 appearances. If this situation continues, someone will be crushed. Currently, Chief Pitching Coach Toshiya Sugiuchi (44) and Pitching Coach Tetsuya Utsumi (43) are in charge of pitching, but both of them have almost no experience as relievers. It is questionable whether they are taking proper care of the pitchers.

Pitcher development not going smoothly for the Giants

The three Hanshin pitchers who have pitched more than 50 innings are Masataka Oikawa (24), who has pitched 66 innings, Daichi Ishii (28), who has pitched 53 innings, and Masaru Iwasaki (34), who has also pitched 53 innings.

Fujikawa, a relief pitcher, has been taking meticulous care of his pitchers to avoid breakdowns, such as ordering pitchers who have pitched two in a row to stay home to avoid pitching three in a row. At the same time, in cooperation with the farm, he has allowed young pitchers such as Yasunari Kudo (23) to gain experience by registering and deleting them in detail.

The cooperation of the farm is indispensable for developing pitchers and deepening the lineup, but this is not the case with the Giants.

When Masumi Kuwata (57), the manager of the second team, approached Abe about registering a pitcher with the first team, Abe was reluctant to do so, and in many cases, he pulled another pitcher from the lineup. The relationship between the two is not bad by any means, but if you ask whether the cooperation between the two is smooth or not,……, you will get the wrong impression.

Contrary to the public image, Abe is usually a joking and cheerful person. But when the team is losing, he instantly changes into a serious and thoughtful character, and even as an older coach, I get the feeling that he is unapproachable.

The fatal weakness of the Giants may be Abe’s impatience with winning and the resulting lack of communication with the players and coaches. However, Abe is still in his second year as manager, and is still going through a process of trial and error. Shinozuka, the aforementioned manager, offers the following words of encouragement.

Even though the Hanshin are ahead of the Giants, it is a good achievement for them to finish in the A-Class for the second year in a row. The current Giants are in the midst of a rebirth, with long-time Giants mainstays such as Hayato Sakamoto (36) and Yoshihiro Maru (36) approaching their final years. The youngsters will start to emerge, and we can expect to see the return of Togo and the further growth of Yamazaki and Inoue. I hope that Shinnosuke will make good use of his communication with the players in order for them to better understand his baseball.”

The road to the revival of the Abe Giants, burning for revenge, is still long.

Part 1: Why were the “Abe Giants” so weak? A “fatal weakness” in the leading contender for the championship

From the October 17, 2025 issue of FRIDAY