Japanese High School Pitcher Throws 772 Pitches in 9 Days!!!

tellitlikeitis · Apr 3, 2013

Many top Japanese pitchers have shined at the national high school tournaments. Take Yu Darvish and Daisuke Matsuzaka, for example. Shohei Otani flirted with going straight to MLB before deciding to start his pro career in Japan. Shintaro Fujinami struck out 14 in the championship game of the Summer Koshien tournament. Fujinami was considered to be in Otani's class talent-wise, and some scouts thought that he could turn out to be better than Otani. A 16-year-old could soon join their ranks, which is pretty darn good company.

Tomohiro Anraku, who is a sophomore righthander at Saibi High School in Ehime, recently pitched at the Spring Koshien, one of the major high school tournaments in Japan. He has received considerable attention not just because of his prodigious talent and potential, but also the astronomically and obscenely high pitch counts that he has racked up in the tournament, on very little rest. Saibi lost 17-1 in the championsip game of the tournament, but the top story without a doubt has been Anraku's workload.

Ben Badler of Baseball America has been covering Anraku at the Spring Koshien, and here is his recap of the final game, in addition to Anraku's stuff and performance in the tournament.

The effects of his extreme workload were hard to miss, as Anraku allowed seven runs in the fifth inning and two more in the sixth inning before Saibi switched to another pitcher for the first time in the entire tournament and went on to lose 17-1 in front of 30,000 fans at Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya.

At the start of Spring Koshien, the 6-foot-1, 185-pound Anraku showed incredible talent, with a fastball that touched 94 mph, flashes of a future above-average breaking ball, along with good flexibility and coordination. Today, his fastball sat at 78-85 mph and topped out at 88. Anraku allowed nine runs (three earned) and 12 hits. He didn’t walk anyone, but he hit three batters and struck out just two.

Anraku left after throwing 109 pitches, bringing him to 381 pitches in three days and 772 pitches in nine days for the entire tournament, a workload that Major League Baseball’s most durable starters amass in five to six weeks. The symptoms of Anraku’s heavy usage were clear beyond his diminished fastball. His normal rapid-fire pace slowed considerably, his breathing appeared heavy and his curveball deteriorated into a slow, rolling pitch without its typical bite.

Saibi High led 1-0 going into the fifth inning, but that’s when Anraku’s day started to fall apart. With runners on second and third and nobody out, Anraku allowed a single to tie the game. He nearly escaped the inning with the score 1-1, but with two outs and the bases loaded, Anraku allowed a two-run double on an 86-mph fastball to make it 3-1. With runners on second and third, Anraku left an 81-mph fastball up in the zone was that was mashed for a double to left field to make it 5-1. A hanging 71-mph curveball to the next batter resulted in another double to make it 6-1, followed by a line-drive single to center field on an 81-mph fastball that made it 7-1.

In the sixth inning, Anraku had a runner on second base with two outs when he hit a batter with a 79-mph fastball and then plunked the next hitter with an 83-mph fastball on a 1-2 pitch. A bases-loaded single to center field scored two runs to make it 9-1. There is a win-at-all-costs mentality in Japanese high school baseball, and once Saibi went to its bullpen to start the seventh inning it was evident why Anraku’s coach rode him so hard, as the bullpen gave up eight runs in the final two innings.

Anraku’s intense workload has sparked discussion in Japanese media, and social media about whether it’s right for a coach to use a 16-year-old pitcher this way. In the U.S. baseball community, even those who believe that pitchers should throw s higher volume of pitches are uneasy with Anraku’s workload and lack of rest. Some major league scouts and front-office personnel have been fuming, calling Anraku’s usage dangerous, reckless and abusive.
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We haven't heard the last of Anraku... in August, the Summer Koshien takes place. This is the national championship tournament for Japanese high school baseball.

While Anraku should be able to get some rest with Spring Koshien complete, it likely won’t be his last heavy workload. Next up is Japan’s Summer Koshien in August, followed quickly by the 18U World Championships in late August and early September. Then Anraku still has one more year of high school, which means he may have three more Koshien tournaments left before he graduates.
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Here's his game log for the tournament.

Tomohiro Anraku, Spring Koshien 2013 Results

Tuesday, March 26: 13 IP, 10 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 13 SO, 232 pitches
Saturday, March 30: 9 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 SO, 159 pitches
Monday, April 1: 9 IP, 9 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 7 SO, 138 pitches
Tuesday, April 2: 9 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 7 SO, 134 pitches
Wednesday, April 3: 6 IP, 12 H, 9 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 2 SO, 109 pitches
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xcrunner51 · Apr 3, 2013

That's insane and very negligent on the coach's part. Throwing 232 pitches on the first day of that tournament was an enormous red flag. Everything after is almost moot in its stupidity. He's 16; that may have permanently screwed up his arm/career.

kevC · Apr 3, 2013

This is child abuse.

tellitlikeitis · Aug 14, 2013

Well, the Summer Koshien is in full swing. And Mr. Anraku is back for more.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Tomohiro Anraku's first game at Koshien: 9 IP, 137 pitches. Can the 16-year-old survive what Japan demands of him? <a href="http://t.co/EIax0nb1Ek">http://t.co/EIax0nb1Ek</a></p>— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) <a href="https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/statuses/367668256980488192">August 14, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Tomohiro Anraku, 16-year-old Japanese phenom who threw 772 pitches in 9 days, hit 96 mph in his first Koshien start <a href="http://t.co/LWw5znJZh3">http://t.co/LWw5znJZh3</a></p>— Ben Badler (@BenBadler) <a href="https://twitter.com/BenBadler/statuses/367659247141523456">August 14, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Beavis Stiffler · Aug 14, 2013

He's going to end up injured like what happened Strasburg towards the end of last year. Hope I'm wrong on this one.

MadMax · Aug 14, 2013

There was a great piece on Outside the Lines on ESPN about this...about the samurai culture applied to young pitchers in Japan. They literally want higher pitch counts and wear them like a badge of honor.

tellitlikeitis · Aug 16, 2013

This is for real.

Ben Badler (@BenBadler): Saibi High can't score in the ninth. Anraku comes out for extra innings. 16-year-old about to throw his 300th pitch in three days.

@BenBadler: Anraku surrenders four runs in the top of the 10th. His last pitch—his 183rd of the day and likely final pitch of Koshien—was 94 mph.

@BenBadler: Holy crap. Tomohiro Anraku just hit a three-run homer to cut the deficit to to 7-6. Crowd went absolutely bananas.

jdh008 · Aug 18, 2013

Beavis Stiffler said: ↑

He's going to end up injured like what happened Strasburg towards the end of last year. Hope I'm wrong on this one.
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I understand the point you were trying to make here, but I think you actually made the opposite point.

Strasburg has been handled with kid gloves the entire way. Even in college, where we've all heard horror stories, his pitch counts were reasonable because his coaches didn't want to burn him out. And in professional ball, he has been on strict pitch and inning limits from day one. I don't know for sure, but I would also guess his high school work load wasn't extreme because he wasn't a stud prospect coming out of high school.

It just goes to show that pitchers are going to get injured regardless of what you do to prevent it.

Now with that being said, 772 pitches in 9 days is criminal and it's a testament to how good this kid's arm is that he was throwing as hard as he was after all that.

peleincubus · Aug 18, 2013

Same thing happened to john peters in Brenham HS. They threw his arm out. As far as I know he was the first and last pitcher in high school to be on the cover of sports illustrated.

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