Masataka Yoshida (Boston Red Sox)’s sense of hitting is reviving.
Yoshida signed a five-year, $90 million (approximately 120 billion won) contract with Boston ahead of this season and succeeded in advancing to the major leagues. In the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC) held ahead of his first season in Boston, he contributed to Japan’s championship with 9 hits, 2 home runs, 13 RBIs, 5 runs and a batting average of 0.409 OPS 1.258. Yoshida set a new record for the most RBIs in a single WBC tournament and became the RBI kingpin.
Although he was highly anticipated during his time with the WBC, Yoshida’s early season performance was not good. Four games into his debut, he started off with a home run against the Pittsburgh Pirates, but his hitting feeling waned after that. On the 19th (Korean time) against the Minnesota Twins, he was silent with no hits in 5 at-bats and fell to a batting average of 0.167 OPS 0.560.
However, after that, Yoshida’s sense of hitting began to revive. He went 2-for-5 with 2 RBI and 1 run against Minnesota on the 21st, then swung hard in 4 straight games against the Milwaukee Brewers. He went 1-for-4 with 1 RBI in the matchup on the 22nd, and went 2-for-4 in the game on the 23rd.
In the head-to-head match on the 24th, his giant gun instinct was also awakened. He went 4-for-2 with 2 home runs and 6 RBIs to lead the team to a 12-5 victory. In the top of the first inning, he scored his first RBI with a sacrifice fly with one out on first and third base, and then hit a one-run home run in the top of the eighth when the score was 4-4. Then, in the first order of batting, he entered the plate again. In the situation with the bases loaded with two outs, he hit a home run that would drive a wedge.
Yoshida continued his good hitting feeling in the game on the 25th. He started in left field, batting fourth, in an away game against the Baltimore Orioles, going 3-for-3 with one walk. In the top of the second inning, he batted as the leadoff batter and got a hit, but Enrique Hernandez’s double hit put him out. With two outs and no runners in the third inning, he stepped in and got another hit.
Yoshida hit again in the sixth inning with a runner on first base unharmed, making his first three-hit game in his major league debut. However, first base runner Justin Turner was out on third base due to excessive running. In the meantime, Yoshida advanced to second base, but no follow-up hit. In the last at-bat in the top of the ninth inning, he came out as the lead batter, walked on base, and was replaced by runner Raimel Tapia to finish the game.토토사이트 But the batters were silent and Boston lost 4-5 to Baltimore.
Yoshida pitched his first three-hit game in his debut, raising his batting average to 0.265 OPS of 0.789 with 18 hits, 3 homers, 15 RBIs and 11 runs.
